200 GB Maxtor Windows Install Probs

[Zer0X]

Heres what happened. I got this drive about a month or two ago, and when I first got it I had Win2k on it, and I was able to install it fine. After that, I started using some Linux Distros, and was unable to find one that fully supported my hardware the way I wanted. So I decided to go back to Windows 2k. Now I can't install 2k because it just freezes on loading Windows Program at the last part of the beginning prompt after it loads the drivers. XP says it is unable to access my disk, even though I used the provided software multiple times for both. And finally, I tried 98, which does a kind of incomplete install, and is missing files I don't have, or will freeze upon 3rd boot after install. Anyone have any ideas? Mobo=NForce2 Abit NF7-S, BIOS set up HD as Auto [also tried LBA to no avail]. The Linux distros are able to pick up the drive as I have tested with the install discs. Anyone have any ideas? This is driving me insane!

 

[kursplat]

are you willing to lose everything on the drive ? maxtor's powermax can write 1's and 0's to the drive and give it that fresh store bought feel.

if you don't\can't lose your stuff maybe it's what ever boot loader you were using for the linux distros stopping access to the rest of the drive ?
good luck

 

[stephbu]

Could well be that your ATA IDE card needs drivers to support partitions larger that 137Gb - I recently had similar troubles with Win2K3 and a 160Gb partition over exactly that.

I hadn't noticed that there was a NT driver in with my ATA/133 card's packing (it's been so long since I've seen a disk controller unsupported out of the box with NT too!). And as always reading the manual was last resort

When you install NT you get a prompt to install additional SCSI drivers during the console setup phase. Here is where I added my ATA card's NT driver. There after NT was very happy.

 

[Zer0X]

kursplat, was thinking the same thing. Probly gonna zero the drive later today.

stephblu, I've tried partitioning it with smaller ones than 137 GB, but it [XP install] still doesn't recognize it. The thing is, I was able to install XP Pro before that earlier yesterday, but I totally forgot I used the wrong disc [needed my XP Home disc because Pro is being used on another comp] so I had to delete everything and try again, but after that it would just say it wouldn't recognize it. It still puzzles me that 98 can detect it and install [albeit incompletely].

 

[Zer0X]

Fixed

 

[straubs]

But you aren't going to tell us the problem? You tease!