Windows 2000 and large hard drives

B

blindrocket

Gawd
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Jan 14, 2001
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I'm preparing to build a file server with an 80GB main partition and two 250GB disks for storage and backup.

I want to format them in NTFS, which shouldn't be a problem during the initial partition and format stage I think... but I think that Windows 2000 will have problems seeing all of the large drive, am I correct in all of this? I could be wrong somewhere, please someone point it out. :)

If I install the SP for 2000, will that resolve the problem, or is there something else I need to do, or nothing at all?

THANKS for any help!

-blind
 
you can do it with out any service packs, your talking about dynamic discs a.k.a. software raid. go into your disc management and upgrade the two 250gb's to dynamic discs then you can create a new logical volume either striping or mirroring the two 250's. you cant have your boot volume in a logical volume though so you cant have the 80gb in the logical volume.
 
You could merge the two as dynamic disks, but I wouldn look at a hardware RAID solution. Does the mobo support RAID? Dynamic disk access is slow, because it's a software RAID.

I think his question about about the 137GB barrier though, as that does require SPs.
 
Yes, I'm sorry for the confusion.

I don't plan on raiding them, I will set them up as independent drives with one large partition on each.

So formatting and partitioning from the WIN2000PRO disc won't be a problem, right?
But once I actually install Windows and get into the OS, it just won't SEE the whole drive until I install the SP3, right?

Thanks for your help everyone!
 
I wouldn't touch the two 250 GB drives until AFTER you've installed 2000 and patched it all up. You can partition/format your 80, install 2000 on it, patch everything, then work with your other drives.

Riley
 
There used to be a 130gb ( I think) limit, but it was addressed in one of the service packs. I suggest you install windows, install service pack 4, and then install the large drives.
 
I really thought the limit was based on ATA controllers rather than the OS. NTFS supports partitions into the terabyte range as part of its spec; I have a hard time imagining the limit is in any way affected by Win2K itself.
 
I may be a step behind your question, and you might have already done this, but make sure your motherboard doesn't need a BIOS update to recognize newer large hard disks.

I've seen a few small servers from Dell lately that were built in the last year, that needed some Bios updates to recognize anything larger than 120 for the onboard controller.
 
I agree with the others that you'll need Service Pack 3 or later with Windows 2000 in order for that OS to support hard drives larger than 137GB - and then, you'll have to enable the EnableBigLBA support via a registry hack. The original release of Windows 2000 - which I assume that you have - supports only 28-bit LBA addressing through its "atapi.sys" driver. Installing SP3 or later replaces that 28-bit-only LBA driver with a 48-bit-capable LBA driver - but that still doesn't automatically enable 48-bit LBA support.

If, on the other hand, your 250GB hard drives will be connected to a separate PCI-based IDE or SATA or SCSI controller (all of which are treated as SCSI controllers in Windows), then you'll be limited only by the capacity limits of your controller's BIOS and drivers.
 
I wouldn't even add the 2 250's in the system until the system is patched.

To everyone else, the link I posted in the first reply covers BIOS updates, IDE controller compatiblity, OS compatiility and service packs. Ice Czar really did a nice writeup on it, it really is good stuff dammit. :p
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I'm still waiting on all of my hardware from Newegg.

I will do as suggested, and assemble the computer, format the 80GB, install Windows, apply SP4, patch it all up, etc... and then format the two 250GB drives.

Thanks a lot everyone, and if it doesn't go as planned, you will hear back from me!

:)

-blind
 
Okay, I'm having troubles. :)

I've been trying to partition these two 250 GB drives for the past few hours now... I decided to call upon the [H] for help. ;)

Again, I'm running Windows 2000 PRO w/ SP4. I have one 80GB drive with Windows on it (on the primary IDE) and I have two 250GB drives on the secondary IDE.

Booting for the CD, it wants to format them as 137GB drives as we know it would...
so how DO I get them formatted in their full capacity with NTFS?

I've tried FDISK'ing it... but I can't get it to work, I have no idea... it wants to format them as tiny drives, like 30GBs or something.

If someone could PLEASE help, I would GREATLY appreciate it.

BTW, this is on an NF7 ver. 2.0 motherboard, Athlon 3200+, 1024MB Crucial DDR, Matrox PCI video, NEC 8x DVD-RW, Floppy. ;)

THANKS!

EDIT: I'm going to try WD's Data LifeGuard Tools. I should have tried this first, silly me. Supposedly it runs from within Windows and it can overcome the 137GB barrier. *crosses fingers*
 
blindrocket said:
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I'm still waiting on all of my hardware from Newegg.

I will do as suggested, and assemble the computer, format the 80GB, install Windows, apply SP4, patch it all up, etc... and then format the two 250GB drives.

-blind
Click to expand...

How? You follow the steps you worked out last time. ;)

If the XP cd is in, and your formatting from there, you haven't installed windows yet, why are the 250 drives in? Take them out for now.

Also, the link I posted explains the 137GB capacity.

good luck.
 
The WD utitlities seems to be working fine so far... *phew*

I should have done this sooner! :rolleyes:

It just goes to show my total lack of experience with large hard drives... half a terra will be nice though. :cool:
 
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