NTFS partition size 1

[jakrabit]

i recently was asked to setup an NT workstation with NTFS, on one partition... "Not a problem" i thought... well... the drive is a 10 Gig drive... when i try to create the partition, it says there is an 8Gig limit... however, if i take that drive in a second system and create the partition to NTFS, and then put it back and let NT setup on it, it seems to work...

any thoughts on this? Shane
and now for the impressive abbreviations:
DOA, SOL, AWOL, PEBKAC, id10t, FUBAR

 

[Voyager1]

Sounds like a BIOS problem to me. There are some older (not ancient, but older) BIOS programs that cannot create a partition larger that 8gb. For whatever reason, if the large partition is already there, the BIOS can see it...

X-) Bill
CNE, MCSE, CCNA, CCA, MCT, CCI

"When I go. I want to go like Grandpa, peacefully in my sleep. Not screaming in terror like his passengers"

 

[jakrabit]

actually, this is PIII 600 system... Intel 810 motherboard...

it only happens when i boot from the NT cd and install... it will not allow me to create an NT partition larger than 8 Gigs... Shane
and now for the impressive abbreviations:
DOA, SOL, AWOL, PEBKAC, id10t, FUBAR

 

[butchrecon]

The system you put the drive into to set it up, Does it have SP4 or later installed. NT 4 Initially has an 8GB limit for the primary partition. SP4 fixes this for larger HDDS.

 

[jakrabit]

it is a blank hard drive... i am installing from scratch... are you saying that the newer NT 4.0 Workstation setup resolves this?

if so, time to get an updated CD... Shane
and now for the impressive abbreviations:
DOA, SOL, AWOL, PEBKAC, id10t, FUBAR

 

[butchrecon]

You said you put the drive into a secon system and formatted NTFS no proble. Is this second system running SP$ or above?

 

[butchrecon]

I am sorry. As I look through my notes I realize that NT4 can only have up to an 8 GB system partition. Though NT4 in theory "see" up to 16 exabytes in size using the NTFS file system The system partition is limited to 8GB (7.8GB)
SP4 does not work around this.(Though it does work around other partition problems)

 

[butchrecon]

Here is more info of relavence:

When you are installing Windows NT 4.0, you can create a system partition with a maximum size of 4 GB. This occurs because Setup first formats the partition using the FAT file system. If you want to use an NTFS partition, the partition is converted to NTFS after the first reboot. The FAT file system has a file system limitation (unrelated to any BIOS limitations) of 4 GB. When you perform an unattended installation, use of the ExtendOEMPartition directive in an Unattend.txt file can expand the system partition to a maximum of 7.8 GB.

 

[jakrabit]

thanks butchrecon...

i knew about the FAT to NTFS conversion... it was the system partition limitation i was unaware of... usually, i like to make the system partition 2 to 3 gigs, but was asked to make just one partition the entire size of the disk... that threw me, because i had never done that with NT before... Shane
and now for the impressive abbreviations:
DOA, SOL, AWOL, PEBKAC, id10t, FUBAR

 

[butchrecon]

On a side note. Windows 2000 Does not have these limitations