Disc Partition/Volume Problem

[Not Known]

Hello,

I have a 160Gb HDD which since it was new has only been used in an external
USB 2 disk enclosure on XP and Win 2k Pro PC's. It is partitioned with 20Gb
Fat32 and 130Gb NTFS. The other 10Gb is apparently lost in overhead.

I have moved this disk now and attached it via IDE with the intention of
using it for an internal disk on a Win 2k Server. However, the disc only
shows up as being 128Gb in disk manager. So I deleted the partition and
recreated it. But it was still 128Gb. I then used DELPART to totally
remove the partition on this disk and went back into Win2K Server again
recreated the partition in disk manager. STill it shows up as 128Gb. It's
kind of like the old Fat32 partion cannot be read?

Anyway, I moved the disk back into the USB2 Enclosure and hooked it up to an
XP machine. Although it itially showed as 128Gb, when I deleted and
recreated the partition, it showed as 149Gb which was perfect. When I
reattached the disk to the Win2K Server via IDE again, it showed as 148 Gb
as well which was good. But I needed this to be a volume on a dynamic disk,
and when I converted it from a basic disk to a dynamic disk, it went back to
128Gb again.

I have tried moving the disk backwards and forwards between the USB2
enclosure and the IDE in the serevr several times and exctly the same thing
happens?

The BIOS in the server showes the disc as being something like 135Gb or
something?

Any clues?

Maybe it's something to do with BIOS settings in the Server ?

Thanks

Paul

 

[Andy Foster]

Hello,

I have a 160Gb HDD which since it was new has only been used in an
external USB 2 disk enclosure on XP and Win 2k Pro PC's. It is
partitioned with 20Gb Fat32 and 130Gb NTFS. The other 10Gb is apparently
lost in overhead.

I have moved this disk now and attached it via IDE with the intention of
using it for an internal disk on a Win 2k Server. However, the disc only
shows up as being 128Gb in disk manager. So I deleted the partition and
recreated it. But it was still 128Gb. I then used DELPART to totally
remove the partition on this disk and went back into Win2K Server again
recreated the partition in disk manager. STill it shows up as 128Gb.
It's kind of like the old Fat32 partion cannot be read?

Anyway, I moved the disk back into the USB2 Enclosure and hooked it up to
an XP machine. Although it itially showed as 128Gb, when I deleted and
recreated the partition, it showed as 149Gb which was perfect. When I
reattached the disk to the Win2K Server via IDE again, it showed as 148 Gb
as well which was good. But I needed this to be a volume on a dynamic
disk, and when I converted it from a basic disk to a dynamic disk, it went
back to 128Gb again.

I have tried moving the disk backwards and forwards between the USB2
enclosure and the IDE in the serevr several times and exctly the same
thing happens?

The BIOS in the server showes the disc as being something like 135Gb or
something?

Any clues?

Maybe it's something to do with BIOS settings in the Server ?

http://www.google.co.uk/search=137GB

 

[Kirk Preston]

Older PCs are limited to 137GB hard disks. I believe that is what is
happening here. You can purchase a new controller card fairly cheaply
that will support this larger disk.

 

[VWWall]

Hello,

I have a 160Gb HDD which since it was new has only been used in an external
USB 2 disk enclosure on XP and Win 2k Pro PC's. It is partitioned with 20Gb
Fat32 and 130Gb NTFS. The other 10Gb is apparently lost in overhead.

Drives marketed as 160GB contain only ~ 149GB (using 1K = 1024).

I have moved this disk now and attached it via IDE with the intention of
using it for an internal disk on a Win 2k Server. However, the disc only
shows up as being 128Gb in disk manager. So I deleted the partition and
recreated it. But it was still 128Gb. I then used DELPART to totally
remove the partition on this disk and went back into Win2K Server again
recreated the partition in disk manager. STill it shows up as 128Gb. It's
kind of like the old Fat32 partion cannot be read?

Win2k requires SP3, and the system BIOS must be capable of 48 bit LBA.

Anyway, I moved the disk back into the USB2 Enclosure and hooked it up to an
XP machine. Although it itially showed as 128Gb, when I deleted and
recreated the partition, it showed as 149Gb which was perfect. When I
reattached the disk to the Win2K Server via IDE again, it showed as 148 Gb
as well which was good. But I needed this to be a volume on a dynamic disk,
and when I converted it from a basic disk to a dynamic disk, it went back to
128Gb again.

I have tried moving the disk backwards and forwards between the USB2
enclosure and the IDE in the serevr several times and exctly the same thing
happens?

The BIOS in the server showes the disc as being something like 135Gb or
something?

Sounds like the server has only 28 bit LBA capability in its BIOS.
(2^28 bits X 512 bytes/sector = ~137 GB) The USB enclosure must have a
48 bit LBA capability, showing the true disk capacity. (~149GB)

Be very careful that you have the correct BIOS as well as the correct OS
before you try writing past ~137GB. Sometimes things look OK up to that
point and then you can suddenly lose data.

Virg Wall

 

[Andy]

In order for Disk Management in Win 2k Server to see past 137GB on the
hard drive, two conditions must be satisfied:
1. Install SP3 or later.
2. You must enable the support in the Windows registry by adding or
changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1 in the following
registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];305098>

 

[Not Known]

Thanks, I had SP4 already but needed to enable large disk support in the
registry. I'm not sure what type of BIOS my motherboard supports, but have
set it to LBA Assisted??

Anyway I copied 145 gb of test data on to the drive now an it all seems OK

Thanks

In order for Disk Management in Win 2k Server to see past 137GB on the
hard drive, two conditions must be satisfied:
1. Install SP3 or later.
2. You must enable the support in the Windows registry by adding or
changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1 in the following
registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];305098>

Hello,

I have a 160Gb HDD which since it was new has only been used in an
external
USB 2 disk enclosure on XP and Win 2k Pro PC's. It is partitioned with
20Gb
Fat32 and 130Gb NTFS. The other 10Gb is apparently lost in overhead.

I have moved this disk now and attached it via IDE with the intention of
using it for an internal disk on a Win 2k Server. However, the disc only
shows up as being 128Gb in disk manager. So I deleted the partition and
recreated it. But it was still 128Gb. I then used DELPART to totally
remove the partition on this disk and went back into Win2K Server again
recreated the partition in disk manager. STill it shows up as 128Gb.
It's
kind of like the old Fat32 partion cannot be read?

Anyway, I moved the disk back into the USB2 Enclosure and hooked it up to
an
XP machine. Although it itially showed as 128Gb, when I deleted and
recreated the partition, it showed as 149Gb which was perfect. When I
reattached the disk to the Win2K Server via IDE again, it showed as 148 Gb
as well which was good. But I needed this to be a volume on a dynamic
disk,
and when I converted it from a basic disk to a dynamic disk, it went back
to
128Gb again.

I have tried moving the disk backwards and forwards between the USB2
enclosure and the IDE in the serevr several times and exctly the same
thing
happens?

The BIOS in the server showes the disc as being something like 135Gb or
something?

Any clues?

Maybe it's something to do with BIOS settings in the Server ?

Thanks

Paul