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2TB+ limitations on 32bit XP?

W

Westify

Junior Member
I'm browsing around for a new storage hardrive and was looking at either a seagate, WD or samsung 3.5 internal 2TB drive, my only concern is will these run no problem on 32bit windows XP?

I havn't made the transition to 7 yet and i know there's compatibility issues with drives bigger than 2.2TB but i can't get a straight answer for 2TB, if it matters i would not be booting off it, purely for storage
 
The 2TB limit is with legacy BIOS partition tables, not really XP itself. You need to use a GPT in order to address a drive >2TB, although I don't think XP32 has support for them either.
 
thanks for the quick reply! 1 more question if you don't mind.

While looking at the drive i noticed a warning that read "This drive utilizes new Advanced Format technology and requires special setup for use with Windows XP."

I've never heard of this before but i'm guessing its something to incorporate the large size, is this just a driver/software install? or is it a special type of NTFS format for XP only? and if thats the case does it pose any problems if i migrated to windows 7 down the road?
 
It means the drive's sector size is 4K instead of 512b. I haven't put one of those in an XP machine myself but I think it'll create the partition misaligned and will perform like shit.
 
You can use such a disk with XP as long as you either set a jumper on the back of the disk or (in the case of WD's 4K sector disks) use a utility furnished by WD to properly align the partitions. It's not hard to do. WD's utility is called...uh...WDAlign.
 
RebateMonger said:
You can use such a disk with XP as long as you either set a jumper on the back of the disk or (in the case of WD's 4K sector disks) use a utility furnished by WD to properly align the partitions. It's not hard to do. WD's utility is called...uh...WDAlign.
Click to expand...

In other words, WD is nice enough to give you some duct tape so that you can make their new hardware work with your decade old software...
 
Except it's an above 2TB limit. 2TB HDDs are below 2TB in real capacity, it's only 3TB drives which are a problem.
 
RebateMonger said:
You can use such a disk with XP as long as you either set a jumper on the back of the disk or (in the case of WD's 4K sector disks) use a utility furnished by WD to properly align the partitions. It's not hard to do. WD's utility is called...uh...WDAlign.
Click to expand...
Be careful with that jumper. Though it indeed can fix alignment problems on XP, it also makes properly aligned partitions misaligned again. So if you use that jumper on a fresh Win7 installation which creates proper partitions, then it will be misaligned again resulting in poor performance. This is not what you want, of course.

I suggest people who want to use Windows XP still, to use another partition manager (MagicParted, Ubuntu, Windows 7 setup DVD) to create the partition; then install XP to that partition. Thus, XP should not be allowed to create its own partition; because XP will misalign partitions. Thus the simplest solution is to use something else to create a partition and then install XP to that pre-created partition.
 
Nothinman said:
It means the drive's sector size is 4K instead of 512b. I haven't put one of those in an XP machine myself but I think it'll create the partition misaligned and will perform like shit.
Click to expand...
Easy. Pre-partition the drive using diskpart on a Win7 box before shoving it into an XP box.
 
PMJI, I just want to make sure I understand..

A 2TB drive will be fine in XP 32bit.

HOWEVER If the drive uses 4K sectors (like those labeled WD Advanced Format), then either partition in W7, or using a 4K aware partition app, or if partitioning in XP use the WD align software.

Am I understanding that part properly?

Additional question...

When using W7 to first initialize and partition the drive, I'm assuming I'd need to select MBR so that both XP and W7 see the drive, right?

Does selecting MBR vs GPT impact the drive's performance?

I'm asking because while eventually I plan on going to plain W7 Ultimate 64bit, I still dual boot between my trusty old XP Pro 32-Bit and W7 Ultimate 64bit, but I need to add additional DATA storage (like holding movies I stream to my bluray player, etc). I'm getting ready to add a 2TB WD Green drive, and while I realize WD Green aren't the fastest drives, I'd hate to have them run even slower.
 
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