large hard drive windows xp help

[hhhhbk]

my current system
xp2500m abit nf7 2x512 pc3200 geil value
120 GB hitatchi drive

im looking at getting a 250 gig seagate ide drive to replace my current 120
(and then use the 120 in my second tower)

i run windows xp pro no updates no service packs and dont plan to change this
as in the past when i have let it update it seems to cause problems rather than fix them

my question is will the 250GB ata100 ide drive work fine and show up its full size without loading the service packs?

need to know for definite before i order one as i have read a lot of comments online about large ide drives working in pio slow mode and only showing 127GB

if this is the case i may just get a pair of 120s and raid them

thx

 

[hhhhbk]

thanks for the responses

after thinking about it
easiest solution to me wanting more disk space is just to get a second 120GB drive

I may try installing windows with SP2 on this new drive to see what its like
its about 2 years since i last tried installing a service pack
it messed up another system which was working fine previously
and i had to then reformat it back as it was in the first place

as it was the second time a service pack had messed up a pc which was working perfectly i decided not to bother trying again as i couldnt see the point
iv been running xp pro without any service packs for almost 4 years on 2 pcs which are online 24/7 and have never really had a problem due to xp