Help with repeated FAT32 corruption & missing partition/logical drive

[The little lost angel]

I'm running Win2K and since upgrading to a pair of 160GB disk, the
filesystem has been screwing up big time. I was told Win2K had
problems with partition bigger than 127GB so I partitioned the disk to
get around that but didn't seem to be helping. I've thought my Win2K
was screwed so I re-installed it, patched it to SP4 but doesn't help.

The first thing is a missing 12GB FAT32 logical drive, it shows up in
DOS as well as Winnt setup program. But Win2K after installation will
report it as free space.

The second thing is every so often, I get entire folders that get
corrupted with gibberish for filenames. I can't delete it, I can't
format it from Windows. I have to resort to DOS to clear out the
entire partition with fdisk.

Is there anyway to solve these problems? Is it a problem with the
motherboard IDE controller? Or have I been screwed with 2 DOA drives
because findpart reports an error reading from the disk? Or is it just
Win2K have problems just with drives bigger than 160GB regardless of
the size of the partition?

I know NTFS is supposedly a better filesystem, but I've had
spectacular screw ups with it and prefer to stick to FAT32 which at
least I can access with DOS tools. Unless there's a good way to
read/write NTFS in DOS?

TIA!

findpart output here if it's of any help
1st 160GB disk. With 2GB primary partition where I boot an old
DOS/Win98SE for emergency. Extended partition with 4 logical drives
for organization purposes, the last logical drive is the missing
drive.

Disk: 2 Cylinders: 16709 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 131069

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
Fdisk F6 sector 0 1 1
0 - 06 16386363 4096471 2000 1020 1 1 1274 254 22 B OK
1275 1 0B 63 32772537 16002 1275* 1 1 3314*254 63 NB OK
1275 2 05 32772600204812685100006 3315* 0 1 16063*254 63 1275 OK
0 - 0B 20482938 32772536 16002 1275 1 1 3314 254 62 B OK
3315 1 0B 63204812622100006 3315* 1 1 16063*254 63 NB OK
3315 2 05237585285 40965750 20002 16064* 0 1 18613*254 63 1275 OK
0 - 0B 53255538204812584100006 3315 1 1 16063 254 25 B OK
16064 1 0B 63 40965687 20002 16064* 1 1 18613*254 63 NB OK
16064 2 05278551035 22635585 11052 18614* 0 1 20022*254 63 1275 OK
0 - 0B258068223 40965664 20002 16064 1 1 18613 254 40 B OK

------FAT CHS -Size Cl --Root -Good -Rep. Maybe --Bad YY-MM-DD DataMB
1020 1 2 251 32 512 251 0 0 0 02-03-23 600
1275 1 35 15987 8 2 15987 0 0 0 02-03-24 7002
3315 1 33 24996 32 2 24996 0 0 0 02-03-24 40404
16064 1 39 9997 16 2 9997 0 0 0 02-03-24 8338

Partitions according to partition tables on second harddisk:

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1 0E 16386363 4096512 2000 1020 1 1 1274*254 63 NB OK
0 2 0F 20482875301186620147063 1275* 0 1 20022*254 63 OK

1275 1 0B 63 32772537 16002 1275* 1 1 3314*254 63 NB OK
1275 2 05 32772600204812685100006 3315* 0 1 16063*254 63 OK

3315 1 0B 63204812622100006 3315* 1 1 16063*254 63 NB OK
3315 2 05237585285 40965750 20002 16064* 0 1 18613*254 63 OK

16064 1 0B 63 40965687 20002 16064* 1 1 18613*254 63 NB OK
16064 2 05278551035 22635585 11052 18614* 0 1 20022*254 63 OK

Error reading CHS: 18614 0 1

*************************************************

The 2nd drive with only two partitions. I get corrupted folders on
both despite the 1st being under the 127GB point.

Disk: 3 Cylinders: 16709 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 131069

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
1 1 0B 63245762307120001 1 1 1 15298*254 63 R0 OK
1 2 05245762370 75891060 37056 15299* 0 1 20022*254 63 1 OK?
0 - 0B 16128245762307120001 1 1 1 15298 254 63 B OK
15299 1 0B 63 75890997 37056 15299* 1 1 20022*254 63 R0 OK?
0 - 0B245778498 75890997 37056 15299 1 1 20022 254 63 B OK?

------FAT CHS -Size Cl --Root -Good -Rep. Maybe --Bad YY-MM-DD DataMB
1 1 37 29994 32* 2 29994 0 0 0 04-09-16 118492
15299 1 35 9263 32* 2 9263 0 0 0 04-11-26 16

Partitions according to partition tables on third harddisk:

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1 0F 16065321653430157057 1 0 1 20022*254 63 OK?

1 1 0B 63245762307120001 1 1 1 15298*254 63 R0 OK
1 2 05245762370 75891060 37056 15299* 0 1 20022*254 63 OK?

15299 1 0B 63 75890997 37056 15299* 1 1 20022*254 63 R0 OK?


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[Alexander Grigoriev]

137GB problem is not with partition size, it's with _drive_ size.
You need to have full support for 48 bit LBA (including in BIOS) before you
even install a big drive in your system. Otherwise you'll have what you've
got.

 

[The little lost angel]

137GB problem is not with partition size, it's with _drive_ size.
You need to have full support for 48 bit LBA (including in BIOS) before you
even install a big drive in your system. Otherwise you'll have what you've
got.

Ok, I didn't realize it was the drive size. The BIOS shouldn't be a
problem as the motherboard is fairly recent, Abit IC-7 and utilities
like Partition Magic was capable of formating the entire 160GB. It's
only Win2K itself apparently

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
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But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[J. Clarke]

Ok, I didn't realize it was the drive size. The BIOS shouldn't be a
problem as the motherboard is fairly recent, Abit IC-7 and utilities
like Partition Magic was capable of formating the entire 160GB. It's
only Win2K itself apparently

This is a well known problem with a well-known fix:

 

[Eric Gisin]

First, find more credible sources. There is no 128GB partition limit.

Second, use Win2K to create partitions. You would have seen 128GB of the disk,
as documented. The registry hack fixes this.

 

[Andy]

You have to do two things to run large drives under Windows 2000:
1. Install SP3 or SP4.
2. Put EnableBigLba into the registry (KB305098).
Then run Disk Management. If it shows the full size of the drives, you
should be okay.

 

[The little lost angel]

You have to do two things to run large drives under Windows 2000:
1. Install SP3 or SP4.
2. Put EnableBigLba into the registry (KB305098).
Then run Disk Management. If it shows the full size of the drives, you
should be okay.

Thanks Andy & J.Clarke, those seemed to have fixed the problem.
--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code