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Windows 2000 IDE drive partition size

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by spydergst1 1 view

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I am building a home system. I just bought an 80Gb IDE drive. I am installing Windows 2K. During the install Windows sees the drive as a 57GB unpartition space and a seperate 17Gb unpartition space. What knowledge am I missing? Why won't it see the entire drive as a hole 80Gb unpartition space. Is there a way to correct this?

10 replies

by alon

Windows 2000 might be limited to a 60GB partition size.

You can try a few things. Install the latest service pack (SP2) and try making it one big drive.

or try partition magic and see if you can't resize the partition to the full size.

As always, backup your data before messing with your partitions.

Alon

by specop99

Best thing is to divide your drive into like 40gb and 40gb or however you want them. Either use Partion Magic or Windows 2000's own utility.

by rod oatis

There is not enough information to give you the correct answer. The problem might not be limited to W2K. Is the drive Ultra66 or Ultra 100 ? If so, does you MB onboard IDE support it? If not, the drive size will be mis-reported. This is a known issue with MS BIOS manufacturers. You will then need to buy a PCI controller card for the drive. I just fought that fight this week.

If the controller is not the issue, break the drive up into three partitions and format the first partition. I suggest3 due to the fact that there is a 32GB limitation in FAT32. Install W2K and let the install routine format partition 1 as NTFS. The "installation" NTFS format is actually a FAT32 format with an NTFS conversion.
Delete and reconfigure the other partitions as desired using Disk Manager under W2K. The partitions will show incorrectly before the NTFS format, but will show properly after.

I will work with you on this one due to the fact that I've dealt with this in detail this week while building a new server

by spydergst1

I have resolved the problem. Turns out I was given the wrong drive. Insted of a 80Gb which is what I odrered I was given a 60GB. The 17Gb was a scsi drive which I failed to notice. So, in conclusion this was my mistake along with the vendors mistakeof sending the wrong drive.Because I will grant all answers out of appreciation for your responses.

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