cannot format 120GB serial ata drive

[Thop]

I have a new mobo (Asus) with on-board serial ata (sata) drive port. New
Maxtor 120GB sata drive. This is my only drive - no ide drive. Early
WIN2000 without sp1 or later on cd (I normally load sp2 to my new drive
after win installation). Win sees the drive and begins setup by formatting
the drive to NTFS. Formatting seems slow, but who knows. Problem is it
freezes at 48 to 50%. I was able to format the drive using WIN 98SE, but
when I tried to upgrade to WIN2000 it bombed on the FAT32 to NTFS
conversion - so it seems to be a NTFS problem.

I thought I would just stick to FAT32, but WIN2000 does not give me that
option.

Any enlightenment? Thanks
Thop
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

I have a new mobo (Asus) with on-board serial ata (sata) drive port. New
Maxtor 120GB sata drive. This is my only drive - no ide drive. Early
WIN2000 without sp1 or later on cd (I normally load sp2 to my new drive
after win installation). Win sees the drive and begins setup by formatting
the drive to NTFS. Formatting seems slow, but who knows. Problem is it
freezes at 48 to 50%. I was able to format the drive using WIN 98SE, but
when I tried to upgrade to WIN2000 it bombed on the FAT32 to NTFS
conversion - so it seems to be a NTFS problem.

I thought I would just stick to FAT32, but WIN2000 does not give me that
option.

Any enlightenment? Thanks
Thop
(e-mail address removed)

There is a 32GB limit for formatting/creating FAT32 volumes under W2K
and higher.

hth