Drive Limitations During Windows NT Setup
Last Updated: 04 Nov 2003
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*** PLEASE NOTE: Link(s), If Provided, May Be Wrapped ***
There are several disk geometry limitations which can
affect an NT4 installation. Depending on your controller
type (usually SCSI controllers), you may encounter limits
of 1GB, 2GB or 4GB when partitioning your drive during
the NT4 setup. The common limits are the 4GB mark and
the 7.8GB mark of the drive.
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NOTE: These are boundaries of the physical drive, not
of a particular logical partition.
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It is possible to get around these limitations by putting
the drive in question into another NT system, and creating
a large partition there. Then, you remove that drive and
place in back into the system you want to build. NT4 will
install just fine. The problem, however, is that if any
of the critical system files are placed beyond the 7.8GB
mark, the system will become unbootable. This can happen
due to a defrag or during a Service Pack update.
These limitations are addressed in Windows 2000 and XP.
WHITEPAPERS & TECH DOCUMENTS
• http://www.winnetmag.com/windowsnt20002003faq/Article/ArticleID/13876/windowsnt20002003faq_13876.html
• http://www.winnetmag.com/windowsnt20002003faq/Article/ArticleID/13922/windowsnt20002003faq_13922.html
• http://www.winnetmag.com/windowsnt20002003faq/Article/ArticleID/13720/windowsnt20002003faq_13720.html
• http://www.winnetmag.com/windowsnt20002003faq/Article/ArticleID/13894/windowsnt20002003faq_13894.html
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=240672
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=138364
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=119497
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=224526
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=149877
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=197295
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=197667
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=178278
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=154052
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=137474
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=240043
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=192104
• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=271274
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/support/issues/setup-issues.asp
• http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/atips120.shtml
• http://2cpu.com/How-To/4gbplusNTpartition.html
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ADDITIONAL SEARCH OPTIONS (MS KB)
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/
• http://www.microsoft.com/technet/
• http://www.microsoft.com/
EXACT PHRASE ........... "AA55"
ALL WORDS .............. "7.8-GB"
ALL WORDS .............. "7.8GB"
ALL WORDS .............. "setup 4GB"
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PERSONAL NOTES
• Win2K cannot format a FAT32 partition larger than
32GB although it can use a larger partition if it
is formatted in Win9x
• The 7.8GB limitation of NT4 is gone with Win2K