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Does WIN XP Pro have a hard drive size limit?

Also that limitation is only for IDE drives and remember you'll need a controller and drivers that both support LBA48 to get over the 137G mark.
 
The hard drive limit isnt so much a Windows thing as it is an interface/standards thing. Windows XP should support volumes up into the Terabyte ranges assuming your hardware and drivers support it. (The key with SP1 was the driver support for the newer hardware).
 
Originally posted by: johnjkr1
XP needs SP1 to see over 137gb
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Wrong. This is only true for certain IDE devices (48 bit LBA). WinXP SP0 has no problem seeing my 240GB RAID0 stripe thanks to my Promise FastTrak 66.
 
Just as a side note, XP won't format Fat32 over 32GB.
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Where did you come up w/ that. The very first time I installed XP (right after it was released) I formatted my 100GB IBM HDD w/ Fat32. Was that just get a fluke or could it be something else. I have since reformatted w/ NTFS so it doesn't matter that much, just curious.
 
Originally posted by: harsh
Just as a side note, XP won't format Fat32 over 32GB.
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Where did you come up w/ that. The very first time I installed XP (right after it was released) I formatted my 100GB IBM HDD w/ Fat32. Was that just get a fluke or could it be something else. I have since reformatted w/ NTFS so it doesn't matter that much, just curious.
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You shouldnt have been able to, Windows XP will allow you to format volumes as FAT32 however it wont do it on anything over 32GB. If you had a 100GB volume formatted as FAT32 than it got formatted by some other means than Windows XP.
 
You shouldnt have been able to, Windows XP will allow you to format volumes as FAT32 however it wont do it on anything over 32GB. If you had a 100GB volume formatted as FAT32 than it got formatted by some other means than Windows XP.
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Yeah.... I've had occasion where I wanted a large FAT32 partition to be available from both 98 and XP and I had to format with FDISK.... and for that matter, I had to format using the new FDISK that allows for all sizes without the modulo restriction. Whenever I've attempted it in XP, I just get an error saying that it's not supported.

I suppose that there could be a backdoor via the WinXP install. It's my understanding that volumes start out as FAT and are then converted to NTFS on the fly after the first reboot (at least that's the way it works in NT, using either FAT16 or FAT64, depending on the size of the partition). I wonder if XT allows users to create FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB if done from setup rather than later from within XP.

I don't have a machine available to find out at the moment... so I guess I'll go on wondering!

Joe
 
I suppose that there could be a backdoor via the WinXP install. It's my understanding that volumes start out as FAT and are then converted to NTFS on the fly after the first reboot (at least that's the way it works in NT, using either FAT16 or FAT64, depending on the size of the partition). I wonder if XT allows users to create FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB if done from setup rather than later from within XP.
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No this behavior was changed starting with Windows 2000, the installer now creates the partition and formats directly as NTFS. The format options during the install will also not include FAT if the volume is larger than 32GB.

From the MS KB:
You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.
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Article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314463
 
Well... there you go!~


harsh, you are appearently the recipient of a bonafide miracle!

You must have formatted it via Fdisk and just forgotten.

Joe
 
Maybe it was partitioned larger than 32GB and he used the format command in WinXP setup simply to format the preexisting volume; AFAIK it's the actual partitioning that is restricted, not the formatting.
 
Originally posted by: TerryMathews
Maybe it was partitioned larger than 32GB and he used the format command in WinXP setup simply to format the preexisting volume; AFAIK it's the actual partitioning that is restricted, not the formatting.
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No it's the formating that is limited. Partitioning doesnt define a filesystem so of course it could partition larger than 32GB, formating is what defines the filesystem and you cannot format a partition as FAT32 if it's greater than 32GB while running Windows XP.

If he had it on a 100GB FAT32 volume than the volume would have been formatted by something other than Windows XP. It could have been from a Windows 98 boot disk or it could have come formatted when he (althought I dont know of any drives that come from the manufacturer pre-formatted, but he could have bought it used).
 
It has been so long ago now and in looking back I did go from Win98 to XP so I probably formatted from a 98 boot disk, I just don't remember doing that though. My memory just isn't what it used to be and I couldn't count the number of times I have either loaded or reloaded XP on a computer. It seems all of my neighbors come to me when they have computer problems. I sometimes think I should start a business, but them what kind of neighbor would I be if I took money from my neighbors.
 
Originally posted by: spyordie007
Partitioning doesnt define a filesystem so of course it could partition larger than 32GB, formating is what defines the filesystem and you cannot format a partition as FAT32 if it's greater than 32GB while running Windows XP.
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I beg to differ. Partitioning does define the filesystem type. Any fdisk program that is less brain-dead than Microsoft's will tell you that; a partition is defined as to what filesystem should be on it before it is formatted.
 
I beg to differ. Partitioning does define the filesystem type. Any fdisk program that is less brain-dead than Microsoft's will tell you that; a partition is defined as to what filesystem should be on it before it is formatted.
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But it's not determinate, the filesystem ID in the partition table doesn't have to be correct. Infact almost all Linux filesystems just use the generic ID of 83. ext2, ext3, XFS, reiserfs, jfs, etc it doesn't matter.
 
agreed, the filesystem id in the partition table is just a marker. What defines the partition as a particular file system type is the formating process, not the other way around.
 
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