137gb disk capacity limit

I just bought a 300gb Seagate hard drive which I eventually plan to use as
my boot drive when I upgrade to XP. My system is a Dell Dimension 4100. In
the meantime, I'd like to use the new drive as a slave. The Seagate disk
documentation seemed to indicate that if I upgraded my BIOS and installed a
chipset upgrade from Intel (which I've now done), that Windows ME would be
able to recognize the entire disk. Am I reading that wrong? Do I still need
to use multiple 137gb partitions as long as I'm using ME?

Thanks,
Maxine

--
mgusenet at pcg dot net

Am I reading that wrong?

Yes. You need to be running XP SP1 or later to be able to access fully
disks 137GB.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Maxine G wrote:

I just bought a 300gb Seagate hard drive which I eventually plan to
use as my boot drive when I upgrade to XP. My system is a Dell
Dimension 4100. In the meantime, I'd like to use the new drive as a
slave. The Seagate disk documentation seemed to indicate that if I
upgraded my BIOS and installed a chipset upgrade from Intel (which
I've now done), that Windows ME would be able to recognize the entire
disk. Am I reading that wrong? Do I still need to use multiple 137gb
partitions as long as I'm using ME?

Thanks, that's what I've been coming around to realizing. Now, though, I
read that if I get a PCI ATA controller that I WILL be able to use the
full drive with WinME. No?

-Maxine

"Mike M" wrote in news:OTGc4LyMFHA.3788
@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl:

Am I reading that wrong?

Yes. You need to be running XP SP1 or later to be able to access fully
disks 137GB.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Maxine G wrote:

I just bought a 300gb Seagate hard drive which I eventually plan to
use as my boot drive when I upgrade to XP. My system is a Dell
Dimension 4100. In the meantime, I'd like to use the new drive as a
slave. The Seagate disk documentation seemed to indicate that if I
upgraded my BIOS and installed a chipset upgrade from Intel (which
I've now done), that Windows ME would be able to recognize the entire
disk. Am I reading that wrong? Do I still need to use multiple 137gb
partitions as long as I'm using ME?





--
mgusenet at pcg dot net

Maxine G wrote:

Thanks, that's what I've been coming around to realizing. Now,
though, I read that if I get a PCI ATA controller that I WILL be able
to use the full drive with WinME. No?

No, I don't think so.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

Maxine G wrote:

I just bought a 300gb Seagate hard drive which I eventually plan to use as
my boot drive when I upgrade to XP. My system is a Dell Dimension 4100. In
the meantime, I'd like to use the new drive as a slave. The Seagate disk
documentation seemed to indicate that if I upgraded my BIOS and installed a
chipset upgrade from Intel (which I've now done), that Windows ME would be
able to recognize the entire disk. Am I reading that wrong? Do I still need
to use multiple 137gb partitions as long as I'm using ME?

Thanks,
Maxine

Windows Me uses the FAT32 file system which has a practical limit of
128 gb binary gb (137 billion bytes) per partition.

The reason for this is that drives with more than 4.1 million total
clusters cannot be maintained because Scandisk and Defrag will not
operate on them. The maximum usable cluster size with FAT32 is 32
kilobytes so that results in the 128 binary gb (137 billion byte)
maximum practical cluster size.

It is possible to create larger FAT32 partitions using some third
party tools but you would also have to locate utilities to replace
Scandisk and Defrag, and I do not know of any for this purpose that
will work on the huge partitions.

With Windows XP if you use the NTFS file system it is possible to have
the entire 300 gb configured as a single partition. If you do upgrade
the computer to Windows XP you could then convert the partitions to
NTFS and using a utility such as Partition Magic or BootItNG you
could, through a series of steps, end up with the entire drive as a
single partition.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

Tell me more, Mike ...

QUOTE
"Very large HD's as of Feb 2003

Please visit Maxtor and look at their FAQ about 200GB drives.
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...a=&p_sp=&p_li=

Typically, these large drives are still mostly not supported by motherboards
and operating systems.
Drives over 137 GB (or 127.5GB ) requires use of extended interrupt 13 with
48 bit addressing.

Typically, the easiest way to use a 200GB drive on a Win98 system is to use
a separate IDE interface card for the drive.

--
Jon Hildrum
DTS MVP

www.hildrum.com
------


Is there a limitation in the WinME file structure processing that prohibits
the more powerful hardware from working properly?
--
Jack E. Martinelli 2002-05 MS MVP for Shell/User / DTS
Help us help you: http://www.dts-L.org/goodpost.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
In Memorium: Alex Nichol
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Mike M" wrote in message
...
Maxine G wrote:

Thanks, that's what I've been coming around to realizing. Now,
though, I read that if I get a PCI ATA controller that I WILL be able
to use the full drive with WinME. No?

No, I don't think so.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

Tell me more, Mike ...

My reply and also Ron's have answered the OP.

What more do you want to know? That XP SP1 and W2K SP3 introduced 48-bit
BA support enabling the use of large IDE hard disks? You could start by
reading KB305098 - "48-Bit LBA Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows
2000" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=305098). I'm sure there is a
similar article for XP but can't locate it at the moment. Ah, found it
KB303013 "How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI
disk drives in Windows XP" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=303013).

Win Me does not support 48 bit LBA addressing. Microsoft will never add
such support.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Jack E Martinelli wrote:

Tell me more, Mike ...

QUOTE
"Very large HD's as of Feb 2003

Please visit Maxtor and look at their FAQ about 200GB drives.
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...a=&p_sp=&p_li=

Typically, these large drives are still mostly not supported by
motherboards and operating systems.
Drives over 137 GB (or 127.5GB ) requires use of extended interrupt
13 with 48 bit addressing.

Typically, the easiest way to use a 200GB drive on a Win98 system is
to use a separate IDE interface card for the drive.

--
Jon Hildrum
DTS MVP

www.hildrum.com
------


Is there a limitation in the WinME file structure processing that
prohibits the more powerful hardware from working properly?

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
In Memorium: Alex Nichol
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Mike M" wrote in message
...
Maxine G wrote:

Thanks, that's what I've been coming around to realizing. Now,
though, I read that if I get a PCI ATA controller that I WILL be
able to use the full drive with WinME. No?

No, I don't think so.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

48-bit BA support

should, of course, have read 48-bit LBA support.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Mike M wrote:

My reply and also Ron's have answered the OP.

What more do you want to know? That XP SP1 and W2K SP3 introduced
48-bit BA support enabling the use of large IDE hard disks? You
could start by reading KB305098 - "48-Bit LBA Support for ATAPI Disk
Drives in Windows 2000" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=305098).
I'm sure there is a similar article for XP but can't locate it at the
moment. Ah, found it KB303013 "How to enable 48-bit Logical Block
Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP"
(http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=303013).

Win Me does not support 48 bit LBA addressing. Microsoft will never
add such support.

ok guys. here goes.

msi RS480M2-IL mother board
1gig ram
amd 64 3800+
maxtor SATA 300gb 6B300S0 hard drive.


when i first put this computer together from scratch, the brand new
hard drive loaded windows mce 2005 perfectlly. right out of the bag
it caught the 300gb and formatted, used the computer flawlessly for 3
weeks, then decided
i didn't want mce2005 so i blew away partition and decided to install
xp pro . ever since then, i have been unable to install xp with
anything larger than 137gb.. ive installed it, then installed the
registry fix for windows for large drive support. no luck. i did
DISKPART and it found the unallocated space, but i can't extend the
space to the current volume partition. i want to have 1 300gb c:
drive, not multiple partitions.

went to maxtor site, downloaded maxblast 4 and followed instructions.
booted from floppy - it formatted the drive and partitioned it ntsf as
300gb said all was well and to reboot with xp pro cd in the drive. i did
it, and still
xp pro cd only sees the drive as 137gb..

do i have to install with a xp pro SP1 disc, for it to recognize it in
the setup as one huge 300gb partition, or can i install with xp pro (no
service pack) and then upgrade it to sp2 after im in windows?

bios finds the drive as 300gb auto detect no problem.. im out of
ideas.



kind regards







Windows Me uses the FAT32 file system which has a practical limit of
128 gb binary gb (137 billion bytes) per partition.

The reason for this is that drives with more than 4.1 million total
clusters cannot be maintained because Scandisk and Defrag will not
operate on them. The maximum usable cluster size with FAT32 is 32
kilobytes so that results in the 128 binary gb (137 billion byte)
maximum practical cluster size.

It is possible to create larger FAT32 partitions using some third
party tools but you would also have to locate utilities to replace
Scandisk and Defrag, and I do not know of any for this purpose that
will work on the huge partitions.

With Windows XP if you use the NTFS file system it is possible to have
the entire 300 gb configured as a single partition. If you do upgrade
the computer to Windows XP you could then convert the partitions to
NTFS and using a utility such as Partition Magic or BootItNG you
could, through a series of steps, end up with the entire drive as a
single partition.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm [/b]



--
liquidous
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted via http://hardware.mcse.ms
------------------------------------------------------------------------
View this thread: http://hardware.mcse.ms/message188341.html

Please Note that this newsgroup is to support those running the Win Me
operating system rather than XP.

Turning to your problem, XP did not support drives larger than 137GB until
SP1 was released in 2002 so if you want to have just a single partition
and don't want to use a third party product such as BING or Partition
Magic to resize the initial small partition after you have upgraded to at
least XP SP1 (but hopefully SP2) then yes, you will have to use an XP SP1
or XP SP2 CD to install XP.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



liquidous wrote:

ok guys. here goes.

msi RS480M2-IL mother board
1gig ram
amd 64 3800+
maxtor SATA 300gb 6B300S0 hard drive.


when i first put this computer together from scratch, the brand new
hard drive loaded windows mce 2005 perfectlly. right out of the bag
it caught the 300gb and formatted, used the computer flawlessly for 3
weeks, then decided
i didn't want mce2005 so i blew away partition and decided to install
xp pro . ever since then, i have been unable to install xp with
anything larger than 137gb.. ive installed it, then installed the
registry fix for windows for large drive support. no luck. i did
DISKPART and it found the unallocated space, but i can't extend the
space to the current volume partition. i want to have 1 300gb c:
drive, not multiple partitions.

went to maxtor site, downloaded maxblast 4 and followed instructions.
booted from floppy - it formatted the drive and partitioned it ntsf
as 300gb said all was well and to reboot with xp pro cd in the drive.
i did it, and still
xp pro cd only sees the drive as 137gb..

do i have to install with a xp pro SP1 disc, for it to recognize it in
the setup as one huge 300gb partition, or can i install with xp pro
(no service pack) and then upgrade it to sp2 after im in windows?

bios finds the drive as 300gb auto detect no problem.. im out of
ideas.