7.87 GB setup limitation apply to WinXP too?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Knack
  • Start date Start date
K

Knack

Recall with WinNT4:
BIOS cannot access anything beyond the first 7.87GB of the hard disk. If any
critical boot data, such as the files NTLDR, NTDETECT or BOOT.INI, get moved
to a point more than 7.87GB from the start of the hard disk, your computer
will not boot.

Disgusted with a recently bad experience involving failures of WinXP's Safe
Mode, System Restore, Last Known Good, and even the Recovery Console. So I
want to install a parallel WinXP as a better recovery tool, but must be
careful about sizing the first 2 primary partitions for the normal and
parallel OSes.

Will a partition-C of 11.5 GB (for the normal OS), followed by unassigned
space of 1GB, followed by partition-D (for the parallel OS) work OK?
 
Assuming your computer has been built in the last 5-7
years, yes, what you mention will work.
 
Will a partition-C of 11.5 GB (for the normal OS), followed by unassigned
space of 1GB, followed by partition-D (for the parallel OS) work OK?
Click to expand...
On my computer 40 gig drive I have 3 primary partitions

C: Win 2k 10 gig- my main working system

D: Win xp 10 gig - purely for practise - in the past I had Win 2k here

E: Win ME 5 gig

I have no problem in accesing these 3 partitions with a separate
boot manager.

I copied the boot files from C: to D: and made some changes to the
boot.ini file to be able to access the Win xp independently
of win 2k

Farouk Dindar
 
My 80GB hard drive was fully accessible when I was using FAT32. After
switching to NTFS, all of it is still accessible.
 
[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a copy
was sent to the cited author.]

Recall with WinNT4:
BIOS cannot access anything beyond the first 7.87GB of the hard disk. If any
critical boot data, such as the files NTLDR, NTDETECT or BOOT.INI, get moved
to a point more than 7.87GB from the start of the hard disk, your computer
will not boot.

Disgusted with a recently bad experience involving failures of WinXP's Safe
Mode, System Restore, Last Known Good, and even the Recovery Console. So I
want to install a parallel WinXP as a better recovery tool, but must be
careful about sizing the first 2 primary partitions for the normal and
parallel OSes.

Will a partition-C of 11.5 GB (for the normal OS), followed by unassigned
space of 1GB, followed by partition-D (for the parallel OS) work OK?
Click to expand...

If your computer's BIOS does not support drives over 8G, then you should
keep to the 7.8G limit. The BIOS is still used until the Windows driver
loads. The difference with Win2K/XP is that it's NTLDR supports the
extended Int13h calls to access at least up to 137G.

If your computer's BIOS supports large drives fine, or you use a
compatible overlay program, you should be able to do whatever you want.
 
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