What is the Maximum Partition Size for a 160GB External USB HDD ?

[Ken Loh]

There could be many people who intend to use a 160GB HDD as an
external HDD hooked-up via USB. I for one, is one of them.

I'd like to use single 160GB external HDD for the following purposes:
- A backup storage for my laptop which is running on WinME;
- A backup storage for my desktop which is running on W2k;
- An additional drive to store work files to ease my already depleted
local drive in my laptop running on WinME;

Therefore, my concern is: What is the maximum partition size I should
use so that there is no conflict when the HDD is switched between the
machines that use WinME and Win2k respectively ?

To try my luck further, I would also like to use the same HDD to act
as the backup storage for a linux machine. However, I have a feeling
that this could be a pretty tall order. Can anyone advise ?

Thanking you in advance.

 

[Tod]

As WinME (and Win98) will work with FAT32 and not NTFS, I will assume you
will be formatting with FAT32.
As long as you do not make any partitions bigger then 128GBs, you should do
just fine.

I've heard that you can get drivers that allow Win ME to work with NTFS,
But I do not know any details.

And I'm sure Linux runs just fine with FAT32, but I've never used Linux.

 

[Michael Kimmer]

As WinME (and Win98) will work with FAT32 and not NTFS, I will assume
you will be formatting with FAT32.
As long as you do not make any partitions bigger then 128GBs, you
should do just fine.

I've heard that you can get drivers that allow Win ME to work with
NTFS, But I do not know any details.

And I'm sure Linux runs just fine with FAT32, but I've never used
Linux.

As long as 98/ME do not support 48 bit LBA (they do support 32 bit LBA) in
any way you're stuck to HDD capactities up to "just" 128 GB, Windows 2000
(as of SP3) and XP with SP1 installed should support 48 bit LBA...So, here's
your answer!

--
M.f.G.
Michael Kimmer

"Ein Tag an dem Du nicht lächelst ist ein verlorener Tag"
"Eine Nacht in der Du nicht schläfst ist eine verschlafene Nacht"

 

[Eric Gisin]

Nope, only internal IDE drives are limited by LBA-28 IDE drivers in Windows.
USB drivers are all LBA-32 (SCSI-2).

USB bridge boards are often limited to LBA-28 (137GB). Firewire has better
LBA-48 support.