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| Thread ID: 50930 | 2004-11-06 10:37:00 | Formating large drives | MORK (5007) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 288588 | 2004-11-06 10:37:00 | Hi everybody Just been given an external USB dive case and a 200 GB drive .however on reading info I find that it needs partitioning and formating before use, so I hooked it up to my win ME system and tried to partition it into 4 50gig parts using fdisk but found that fdisk did not report the correct size. Research has since shown that win ME wont support drives this big. Is there a work around for this or can I do it on an XP machine as a friend has a similar spec'd machine but running XP, or is there another way. Any help would be appreciated Thanks in advance |
MORK (5007) | ||
| 288589 | 2004-11-06 10:54:00 | Hook it up to a 2000 or XP system (secondary drive that is), and format it in that. Windows ME cannot read 200GB to partition it, but it will be able to read the four 50GB drives. Good luck, Cheers George |
george12 (7) | ||
| 288590 | 2004-11-06 11:02:00 | Im surprised that fdisk was even able to detect that USB drive | beama (111) | ||
| 288591 | 2004-11-06 11:19:00 | Spot on it wont see the USB drive ,you have to format it b4 installing in case thanks for the help will try it on XP later |
MORK (5007) | ||
| 288592 | 2004-11-06 14:07:00 | Windows ME... hmm there's the problem! | alphazulusixeightniner (185) | ||
| 288593 | 2004-11-08 02:06:00 | Yeah I know its a problem but, at the mo I can't afford to get XP anyway I tried to format it connected to an XP machine but would only allow ntfs patitions and the USB case cant read them back to square one .So any other suggestions would be a great help also trying to swap the drive for a 120 GB which should be okay i'm told |
MORK (5007) | ||
| 288594 | 2004-11-08 02:13:00 | Partition it before you try to format it. Then you will be able to format to fat 32. Jack |
JJJJJ (528) | ||
| 288595 | 2004-11-08 02:14:00 | Partition it before you try to format it. Then you will be able to format to fat 32. Jack |
JJJJJ (528) | ||
| 288596 | 2004-11-08 02:24:00 | Yes I have partioned it okay into 4X 50 gb parts but XP still wont allow me to format it as Fat32 in insists on using NTFS | MORK (5007) | ||
| 288597 | 2004-11-08 02:33:00 | This might be why. Taken from the MS site Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems Each file system supports a maximum volume size, file size, and number of files per volume. Because FAT16 and FAT32 volumes are limited to 4 GB and 32 GB respectively, you must use NTFS to create volumes larger than 32 GB. If you use FAT16 or FAT32 in computers that start multiple operating systems, you must note the following size limitations: * FAT volumes smaller than 16 MB are formatted as FAT12. * FAT16 volumes larger than 2 GB are not accessible from computers running MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, and many other operating systems. This limitation occurs because these operating systems do not support cluster sizes larger than 32 KB, which results in the 2 GB limit. * In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems. * If you create multidisk volumes such as spanned or striped volumes, the amount of space used on each disk is applied to the total size of the volume. Therefore, to create a multidisk volume that is larger than 32 GB, you must use NTFS. For more information about FAT16 and FAT32, see "FAT File System" later in this chapter. Maximum Sizes on NTFS Volumes In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 264 clusters minus 1 cluster. However, the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows XP Professional is 232 clusters minus 1 cluster. For example, using 64-KB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256 terabytes minus 64 KB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 terabytes minus 4 KB. Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks only support partition sizes up to 2 terabytes, you must use dynamic volumes to create NTFS volumes over 2 terabytes. Windows XP Professional manages dynamic volumes in a special database instead of in the partition table, so dynamic volumes are not subject to the 2-terabyte physical limit imposed by the partition table. Therefore, dynamic NTFS volumes can be as large as the maximum volume size supported by NTFS. Itanium-based computers that use GUID partition table (GPT) disks also support NTFS volumes larger than 2 terabytes. |
Spacemannz (808) | ||
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