A basic question about your machine. What OS are you running? 32-bit or 64-bit? If you have a Win7 32-bit machine, it can only access 4GB, even though you may have 8GB installed. If this is the case, you will have to wipe the HD, install Win7 64-bit to access the the 8GB. I speak from experience... It was worth the pain to wipe HD and reinstall 64-bit versions of my software.