Win2000 "C" Drive only 2.0 GB - How do I increase it?

[Jim-R]

Recent install of Win2000 set tiny 2 GB "C" drive & I cannot do updates &
download programs. It setup D: drive as 126 GB. (Both are NTFS).

How can I greatly enlarge the "C" drive recognized capacity?

Do I need partitions?

How can I use all of the 200 GB SeaGate hard drive?

Thank you, Jim

 

[DL]

Either start from scratch, or use a third party tool, eg Acronis Disk
Director
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304868

You need only a single partition, but see this in relation to the size of
your hd, I suspect your version / installation cd for win2k is pre sp2 and
as such doesnt have large disk support
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098

 

[John John (MVP)]

I stand to be corrected but even if the installation disk is SP3 or
better I still don't think that the disk will be properly seen during
the text-mode portion of the setup, the text-mode portion cannot
properly see or use the disk if it is larger than about 137GB. This is
not the same with XP SP1 which can do 48-bit LBA without the registry
hack, Windows 2000 absolutely needs the hack and it isn't in the
setupreg.hiv on the installation CD.

John

 

[DL]

Its a bit of a time since I used win2k, but the last installation I set up
used a 160gb disk, I used a slipstreamed win2k disk. - of course it could be
down to failing memory and I did something else

 

[Dave Patrick]

Yes, I believe this is correct.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Jim-R]

Thanks for the help! Although the directions did not match my system, I was
able to delete the extended partion and do a new install of Win2000 Pro. I
have also installed SP4. I now have only one partition with 127.99 GB which
is much better!

How can I get this partition to recognize all 200 GB in my hard drive?

Thanks, Jim

 

[Jim-R]

Thanks for the help! Although the directions did not match my system, I was
able to delete the extended partion and do a new install of Win2000 Pro. I
have also installed SP4. I now have only one partition with 127.99 GB which
is much better!

How can I get this partition to recognize all 200 GB in my hard drive?

Thanks, Jim

 

[John John (MVP)]

There are a few things that you need to look at and consider.

First you have to make sure that your BIOS is 48-bit LBA compatible. By
the looks of it I'm not sure that it is, if you were only able to create
a 128GB partition your BIOS may only be 28-bit LBA capable, with a
48-Bit LBA BIOS you should have been able to create a 137GB partition.
Go in the BIOS and verify that the disk and its size is properly
recognized, if it isn't you will need a BIOS update to properly use the
remainder of the disk.

If your BIOS is 48-bit LBA capable you will have to enable 48-bit LBA
large-disk support in the registry, DL has already pointed you to that
information, follow the instructions in
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098

You will not be able to increase the size of the present 128GB partition
without the use of third party tools. After you verify the BIOS and add
the EnableBigLba registry hack you can use the built-in Windows Disk
Management tool to create another partition out of the remaining disk
space. To start the Disk Management tool enter diskmgmt.msc in the
Start menu Run box.

Third party partitioning tools can be used to increase the size of the
current partition to use all the disk space but I would never do this
myself and I would not advise anyone to do this with their Windows 2000
boot volume. Should your Windows 2000 installation ever need to be
repaired with a chkdsk at the Recovery Console you are almost certain to
corrupt the whole disk and loose everything on it as soon as chkdsk
crosses the 137GB boundary. Should you ever need to perform a repair
installation (in-place upgrade) of the operating system you are almost
sure to run in the same kind of problems, the Windows setup program will
not properly recognize the disk and the whole disk may be corrupted
during the installation. For these reasons I do not advise that you
increase the size of your present Windows partition to a greater size.

Should you ever need to repair or cleanly reinstall Windows 2000 on the
present partition make sure that you install SP4 again and make sure
that the EnableBigLba registry entry is present, if you try to copy or
access files on the partition above the 137GB boundary without these you
will probably corrupt the partition and loose all the files on it.

John

 

[DL]

Details posted by John John (21st)

Thanks for the help! Although the directions did not match my system, I
was
able to delete the extended partion and do a new install of Win2000 Pro.
I
have also installed SP4. I now have only one partition with 127.99 GB
which
is much better!

How can I get this partition to recognize all 200 GB in my hard drive?

Thanks, Jim

 

[Jim-R]

Thank you for the great info!

I looked at my BIOS, but could not find the bits. It is "Revision 1.02
08/04/99" so I assume that it is 28-bit. Where do I get a BIOS update for my
computer (HP8560C Pavilion desktop)?

Then I will do the 48-bit LBA instructions that DL sent.

Then from your information, I should be able to go into Disk Management and
see how to add another 72GB NTFS partition to use all of the 200GB hard
drive. I would plan to use that partition for data, photo backup, data
backup from this computer of copied another computer.

Thanks for clearly explaining that I should not try to increase the size of
the 128GB partition. The possible problems sound scary!

Thanks, Jim

 

[DL]

Any Bios update you get from HP
Read carefully any instructions as doing it incorrectly or suffering a pwr
glich whilst doing so can render your PC inoperative
BTW Using a second partition for backups isnt wise, since any hd failure
would result in a complete loss.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Look at the Hard Disk in the BIOS Channel Device options, if the size of
the hard disk is properly shown there you should not need an update. If
the BIOS does not see the size properly go to the HP site and see if an
update is available.

If all is ok in the BIOS just use the Disk Management tool and create a
new partition out of the unallocated disk space. Note that you will not
have 72GB of space left, your 200GB hard disk is actually about 186GB so
you should have about 58GB of unallocated disk space left. This size
discrepancy is explained here:
http://www.diskview.com/disk-size-discrepancy.htm

John