WinXP and Hard Drive Capacity

[bhoenig]

I'm considering upgrading my second physical hard drive from 80 Gigs to
250 Gigs (for video-editing, etc). Before I do that I want to make sure
that WinXP will have no problems recognizing the entire capacity of the
new drive. A few questions:

1. I presently have 2 partitions on the 80 Gig drive (FAT32, set-up by
Partition Magic). I want to use DriveImage 2002 to copy data from the
old drive to the new. Will this work, or is 250 Gigs too much?

2. Will WinXP have any problems recognizing a 250 Gig drive? (I have
XP Pro-SP1).

3. I have Goback installed onto my system, but I don't have it
monitoring this particular drive. Can I safely do the upgrade without
disabling Goback first?

Thanks!

 

[Rock]

I'm considering upgrading my second physical hard drive from 80 Gigs to
250 Gigs (for video-editing, etc). Before I do that I want to make sure
that WinXP will have no problems recognizing the entire capacity of the
new drive. A few questions:

1. I presently have 2 partitions on the 80 Gig drive (FAT32, set-up by
Partition Magic). I want to use DriveImage 2002 to copy data from the
old drive to the new. Will this work, or is 250 Gigs too much?

2. Will WinXP have any problems recognizing a 250 Gig drive? (I have
XP Pro-SP1).

3. I have Goback installed onto my system, but I don't have it
monitoring this particular drive. Can I safely do the upgrade without
disabling Goback first?

Thanks!

There are two things needed for large hard drive support. First the
BIOS has to support 48-bit LBA, second - SP1 or above is needed. You
have SP1 so the only question is the BIOS. I don't know about the
Goback question.

 

[CS]

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:55:21 -0500, "bhoenig<no-spam>"

Answers are in line below.....

I'm considering upgrading my second physical hard drive from 80 Gigs to
250 Gigs (for video-editing, etc). Before I do that I want to make sure
that WinXP will have no problems recognizing the entire capacity of the
new drive. A few questions:

The issue with large hard drives (over 137gb) is whether or not your
motherboard BIOS will recognize the full capacity of the drive. Your
MB "must" be able to effect 48bit LBA in order for the entire hard
drive to be "seen". XP SP2 will have no problem recognizing the drive
provided your MB does.

1. I presently have 2 partitions on the 80 Gig drive (FAT32, set-up by
Partition Magic). I want to use DriveImage 2002 to copy data from the
old drive to the new. Will this work, or is 250 Gigs too much?

Drive Image 2002 will be able to make an image of your 80 gb drive but
may not be able to correctly copy the image to the 250gb drive. I
believe the maximum capacity for DI 2002 is 150gb. I can't find the
exact size requirement in the DI 2002 manual so I'm quoting from
memory. I may be wrong. Also - DI will only be able to "see" what
your MB can "see" as far as drive capacity goes.

2. Will WinXP have any problems recognizing a 250 Gig drive? (I have
XP Pro-SP1).

No, but see above about your MB and 48bit LBA.

3. I have Goback installed onto my system, but I don't have it
monitoring this particular drive. Can I safely do the upgrade without
disabling Goback first?

I would disable Goback as it is not compatible with Drive Image.

 

[Ron Sommer]

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:55:21 -0500, "bhoenig<no-spam>"

Answers are in line below.....


The issue with large hard drives (over 137gb) is whether or not your
motherboard BIOS will recognize the full capacity of the drive. Your
MB "must" be able to effect 48bit LBA in order for the entire hard
drive to be "seen". XP SP2 will have no problem recognizing the drive
provided your MB does.

If the Bios can't be upgraded to recognize the 250 GB drive, then a
controller card will be needed.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm considering upgrading my second physical hard drive from 80 Gigs to
250 Gigs (for video-editing, etc). Before I do that I want to make sure
that WinXP will have no problems recognizing the entire capacity of the
new drive. A few questions:

1. I presently have 2 partitions on the 80 Gig drive (FAT32, set-up by
Partition Magic). I want to use DriveImage 2002 to copy data from the
old drive to the new. Will this work, or is 250 Gigs too much?

I would regard such a size as too much for FAT 32; whether PM will make
one of that size I don't know (XP itself will not make one over 32GB),
but you will either get 128 K clusters or more probably more than
system utilities like scandisk will handle.

2. Will WinXP have any problems recognizing a 250 Gig drive? (I have
XP Pro-SP1).

XP with SP1 is happy enough, but you need to check out your motherboard
and BIOS which must be able to handle the '48 bit LBA' needed for a
drive bigger than 128 GB (137 decimal as used by makers)