Install Large (250GB) HD Under Win 2000

[john chapman]

Running Win 2000 with Athlon 64 3200 in brand new Gigabyte GA-k8n Pro.

Tried to format new hardrive in Admin Tools/Comp Mgt./Disk Mgt., but
ended up with some error to the effect that volume too big for device,
or something similar. Incidently, the software upgrade to WIN to
handle the super big drives was done successfully. Then booted up
with WIN98 SE floppy and formatted disk as Primary FAT32 disk. It
went to completion OK. Next time I booted under WIN 2K, My Computer
could see the disk -- all 250 GB -- and read to and write from the
drive. However, when I went back to Admin Tools/Comp Mgt./Disk Mgt.
for the purpose of reassigning the drive letter, the Disk Mgt.,
indicated that it was a basic drive that was unreadable. No matter
what I tried it identified the drive as unreadable. Yet, I can
continue to see and use the drive without an apparent problem under My
Computer. Incidently, all my drives in the system are FAT32.

It would appear that there is a problem, so I am hesitant to put much
real data on the drive until everything is OK. Any suggestions????

 

[BG250]

I had to update the BIOS on a couple boards to make them see larger drive
correctly.
Also, is there any reason you are not using NTFS?
bg

 

[JimT]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that W2K could only read/format a
drive of that size under NTFS. FAT 32 was not an option.

 

[Gerry Voras]

fat16, fat32, and ntfs5 are all options for w2k. For this size drive, you
should be using ntfs and multiple partitions.

 

[Warren C. E. Austin]

"For this size drive, you should be using ntfs and multiple partitions."

Why?

I have been successfully employing extremely large hard-disks (2 x 160 Gb, 1 x 180 Gb, and most recently testing 1 x 250 Gb), running under W2K for more than two years using a cluster-size of 1 Kb, and have experienced no problems thus far.

It would appear that source-code level changes made to W2K under SP4, have now made it possible to "format" FAT32 partitions of any size (or at least those most of us will ever likely to be experiencing), using the "/A" switch, with a cluster-size as little as 2 Kb and W2K's internal formatting utility; previously I had found the the minimum to be 4 Kb under SP3, and 8 Kb under SP2. In addition, under SP4, W2K will, and does, read and write to FAT32 partitions formatted at either the 1 Kb, or 512 B, cluster-size with no difficulties. Regrettably, it is not possible to format FAT32 under W2K for a cluster-size less then 2 Kb; but, it is possible using Kroll/Ontrack's excellent Disk Manager utility, which is what I use; although quite possibly (and maybe not even then) when SP5 is released, when I suspect additional changes to the source-code will have been made, it may be feasible.

I will say this though, under MS-DOS (dual-boot configuration from outside W2K itself), hard-disks formatted to use cluster-sizes between 1 Kb and 4 Kb will find routine "directory" functions noticeably slowed, as are "delete" and "deltree"; 512 B clusters under MS-DOS do not for all practical purposes appear to be workable; but otherwise all other MS-DOS functions, and applications do run as normal, and as expected. This is an acceptable trade-off in my opinion, especially considering DOS (and as a consequence any DOS-based applications) was never, ever, intended to run on a FAT32 table in the first place, let alone a cluster-size of less than 32 Kb. In exchange, I obtain optimum disk-space utilization, with the convenience of DOS-level disaster recovery capabilities without the need to employ third-party utilities to read NTFS partitions from outside W2K, with all devices whether they be Network, Modems, Printers, or whatever, available to me provided DOS-level drivers h
ave been written for them. This latter capability has been known to save my ass on more than one occasion when W2K has failed - typically virus infection where my scanner (Norton's) has not recognized a new variant), and through the auspices of Arachnid's very good DOS web-browser, I'm able to obtain whatever support tools, or information, I need to get back up and running; or should the need arise, restore an archival backup made of the system from tape.

Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada

 

[Rick]

"For this size drive, you should be using ntfs and multiple partitions."

Why?

I have been successfully employing extremely large hard-disks (2 x 160 Gb, 1 x 180 Gb, and most recently testing 1 x 250 Gb),

running under W2K for more than two years using a cluster-size of 1 Kb, and have experienced no problems thus far.

It would appear that source-code level changes made to W2K under SP4, have now made it possible to "format" FAT32 partitions of

any size (or at least those most of us will ever likely to be experiencing), using the "/A" switch, with a cluster-size as little as
2 Kb and W2K's internal formatting utility; previously I had found the the minimum to be 4 Kb under SP3, and 8 Kb under SP2. In
addition, under SP4, W2K will, and does, read and write to FAT32 partitions formatted at either the 1 Kb, or 512 B, cluster-size
with no difficulties. Regrettably, it is not possible to format FAT32 under W2K for a cluster-size less then 2 Kb; but, it is
possible using Kroll/Ontrack's excellent Disk Manager utility, which is what I use; although quite possibly (and maybe not even
then) when SP5 is released, when I suspect additional changes to the source-code will have been made, it may be feasible.

I will say this though, under MS-DOS (dual-boot configuration from outside W2K itself), hard-disks formatted to use cluster-sizes

between 1 Kb and 4 Kb will find routine "directory" functions noticeably slowed, as are "delete" and "deltree"; 512 B clusters under
MS-DOS do not for all practical purposes appear to be workable; but otherwise all other MS-DOS functions, and applications do run as
normal, and as expected. This is an acceptable trade-off in my opinion, especially considering DOS (and as a consequence any
DOS-based applications) was never, ever, intended to run on a FAT32 table in the first place, let alone a cluster-size of less than
32 Kb. In exchange, I obtain optimum disk-space utilization, with the convenience of DOS-level disaster recovery capabilities
without the need to employ third-party utilities to read NTFS partitions from outside W2K, with all devices whether they be Network,
Modems, Printers, or whatever, available to me provided DOS-level drivers h

ave been written for them. This latter capability has been known to save my ass on more than one occasion when W2K has failed -

typically virus infection where my scanner (Norton's) has not recognized a new variant), and through the auspices of Arachnid's very
good DOS web-browser, I'm able to obtain whatever support tools, or information, I need to get back up and running; or should the
need arise, restore an archival backup made of the system from tape.
I agree with everything except your claim about performance.
E.g. try a disk defrag with 1K or 2K clusters and compare
that to a defrag with 16K or 32K clusters. And overall, I've
found performance is better with larger cluster sizes.

Also, with the sheer size of today's hard drives, the need for
space optimization is far less a consideration for many people
than it once was.

I'm glad to hear about MS's increasing support for FAT32.
At least they're recognizing the installed base of users who
want ready alternate access to their drives in case of Win2K
corruption, or in a dual boot DOS/Win9x configuration, etc.

Rick

 

[Dan Seur]

"For this size drive, you should be using ntfs and multiple partitions."

Why?

It's the 'all your eggs in one basket' thing. If corruption occurs for
any reason anywhere on the HDD, recovery can be much simpler and faster
with the sys, the apps, and the data in different volumes. There's
certainly no "technical" reason compelling such a config, tho. Just
street smarts.

 

[Rob Stow]

It's the 'all your eggs in one basket' thing. If corruption occurs for
any reason anywhere on the HDD, recovery can be much simpler and faster
with the sys, the apps, and the data in different volumes. There's
certainly no "technical" reason compelling such a config, tho. Just
street smarts.

There is also a speed issue. Read and writes are
typically 60% to 80% faster at the beginning of the
drive than they are at the end.

By partioning your hard drive into several partitions
you can ensure that things that need speed - like the
OS and your apps - are installed towards the beginning
of the drive. Similarly, you can make sure that things
that don't need speed - like your collection of downloaded
audio and video files - are towards the back of the drive.

Eg., Playback of DVD quality video only needs on the order
of 400 KB/sec. Hence you might want to put your pirated
videos on a partition at the back of the drive and reserve
the faster partitions at the front of the drive for things
that can take advantage of the speed.

You might also prefer use your partitions to prioritize
according to how often things are used. Things that are
seldom used can go at the back while things that are
frequently used go at the front. This kind of sorting
helps keep the drives read/write heads over the most
frequently used partition, and the heads will seldom
have to make the latency-inducing trip to the less used
partitions at the back of the drive.

 

[john chapman]

The answer from Maxtor, which is consistent with the
comments/suggestions you all provided, is that WIN 2K cannot see
drives this size unless they are NTFS. So I reformatted, and all is
now OK. FAT32 was OK up to at least 120BG, which I also have on the
system.

As to the other comments.... I primarily do graphics (photography),
scanning in my slides and preparing slide shows. Even at 24 bit
images at 4K dpi the scanned images are 56MB. If I add layers, this
can easily get up to 150MB. The complete set for a single slide show
can be over 30GB. I am a bit paranoid about backing up these scans,
so I have drives on my machine which are strictly for backup.
Currently I have 7 drives in the machine and 1 external, totaling over
1 terabyte (isn't that a trillion?). The 250GB maxtor is to be one of
the backup drives.

 

[nesredep egrob]

The answer from Maxtor, which is consistent with the
comments/suggestions you all provided, is that WIN 2K cannot see
drives this size unless they are NTFS. So I reformatted, and all is
now OK. FAT32 was OK up to at least 120BG, which I also have on the
system.

As to the other comments.... I primarily do graphics (photography),
scanning in my slides and preparing slide shows. Even at 24 bit
images at 4K dpi the scanned images are 56MB. If I add layers, this
can easily get up to 150MB. The complete set for a single slide show
can be over 30GB. I am a bit paranoid about backing up these scans,
so I have drives on my machine which are strictly for backup.
Currently I have 7 drives in the machine and 1 external, totaling over
1 terabyte (isn't that a trillion?). The 250GB maxtor is to be one of
the backup drives.

Hot fix for hard disk bigger than 128GB

Backup Registry.

In registry go for

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/atapi/parameters

Add new EnableBigLba as a Doubleword. you will now have a
0x00000000(0)

Right click the EnableBigLba and choose Modify and put in a 1

It should now look like EnableBigLba REG_DWORD 0x00000001(1)

Apparently you should spell it right and use the correct upper and
lower cases
Now reboot

Just as a test I took out this information and booted again and we
were back to 128GB. The Western Digital information quickly put back
in the exactly same information so it is not just a funny fix from me
- It works

B.Pedersen Latitude -31,48.21 Longitude115,47.40 Time=GMT+8.00
If you are curious look here http://www.mapquest.com/maps/latlong.adp

 

[Gerry Voras]

cluster size, and thus drive space waste, increase as partition size
increases.

"For this size drive, you should be using ntfs and multiple partitions."

Why?

I have been successfully employing extremely large hard-disks (2 x 160 Gb,

1 x 180 Gb, and most recently testing 1 x 250 Gb), running under W2K for
more than two years using a cluster-size of 1 Kb, and have experienced no
problems thus far.

It would appear that source-code level changes made to W2K under SP4, have

now made it possible to "format" FAT32 partitions of any size (or at least
those most of us will ever likely to be experiencing), using the "/A"
switch, with a cluster-size as little as 2 Kb and W2K's internal formatting
utility; previously I had found the the minimum to be 4 Kb under SP3, and 8
Kb under SP2. In addition, under SP4, W2K will, and does, read and write to
FAT32 partitions formatted at either the 1 Kb, or 512 B, cluster-size with
no difficulties. Regrettably, it is not possible to format FAT32 under W2K
for a cluster-size less then 2 Kb; but, it is possible using Kroll/Ontrack's
excellent Disk Manager utility, which is what I use; although quite possibly
(and maybe not even then) when SP5 is released, when I suspect additional
changes to the source-code will have been made, it may be feasible.

I will say this though, under MS-DOS (dual-boot configuration from outside

W2K itself), hard-disks formatted to use cluster-sizes between 1 Kb and 4 Kb
will find routine "directory" functions noticeably slowed, as are "delete"
and "deltree"; 512 B clusters under MS-DOS do not for all practical purposes
appear to be workable; but otherwise all other MS-DOS functions, and
applications do run as normal, and as expected. This is an acceptable
trade-off in my opinion, especially considering DOS (and as a consequence
any DOS-based applications) was never, ever, intended to run on a FAT32
table in the first place, let alone a cluster-size of less than 32 Kb. In
exchange, I obtain optimum disk-space utilization, with the convenience of
DOS-level disaster recovery capabilities without the need to employ
third-party utilities to read NTFS partitions from outside W2K, with all
devices whether they be Network, Modems, Printers, or whatever, available to
me provided DOS-level drivers h

ave been written for them. This latter capability has been known to save

my ass on more than one occasion when W2K has failed - typically virus
infection where my scanner (Norton's) has not recognized a new variant), and
through the auspices of Arachnid's very good DOS web-browser, I'm able to
obtain whatever support tools, or information, I need to get back up and
running; or should the need arise, restore an archival backup made of the
system from tape.