Maximum hard drive size windows xp: windows xp — Is the a limit to the size of hard drive xp with no service packs can handle?

external hard drive — Windows XP not recognizing my 4TB WD harddrive


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Just now got Western Digital 4TB hard drive. WD4003FZEX. I have Windows XP and I know there is no straight forward solution in XP to make use of entire 4TB. Is there any workaround in XP to make use of 4TB.

I tried to configure the disc from Windows 7 by changing my partition to GPT from windows 7 machine. But I need to use the backup drive at Win XP only and GPT is not supported by Win XP.

Note: There is a workaround from WD site that they recommend True Image software, which recognizes 4TB. I tried that and it’s working. But that software has some limited functionalities and to use the full feature, I need to purchase it. The main problem is I already have a licensed True Image program which is pretty old. When trying to install this it’s forcing to uninstall my licensed SW which I don’t want to do, since all my previous backups were created with that version.

  • windows-xp
  • external-hard-drive






1

This demonstrates remarkable fortitude!. That said, it might be time to use a newer OS. Get the free ESXi from VMWare, or the Linux of your choice, with Virtual Box or some other end-user VM product. You can have your 4TB disk, a modern OS with modern security features and multi-media opportunities, with one or more instances of XP running on one or more VMs.

Its possible the XP environment can really use 4TB, but I suspect its more likely that multiple partitions of 2TB would do as well. An other alternative would be to partition the monster drive and integrate it into some speedy little computer that your XP machine can mount the partitions of.

Point is, keep the XP for whatever you are enjoying it with, but don’t worry about getting it to understand modern hardware, after a decade+ of Moore’s law. Don’t spend your hard earned money on obsolete software.

And good luck!

Bill






1

Windows XP not recognizing my 4TB WD harddrive

Windows XP does not support using all 4TB. You can use the first 2.1TB

In order to use all 4TB you need to upgrade to a newer version of Windows and have a motherboard that supports UEFI.


This drive does not support older operating systems like Windows XP. You can use this drive in Windows XP or even Windows 98, but you will be limited to the first 2.1 TB.

Source The 4 TB Western Digital Black (WD4003FZEX)


Getting Around The 2.1 TB Limit

Advanced Format can also help the industry get beyond 2. 1 TB capacity
limit, which was brought about by the LBA addressing limit in 32-bit
operating systems. These operating systems can only support up to 4.29
million sectors, which translates to 2,199,023,255,552 bytes if each
sector is 512 bytes.

The only way to get around this is to upgrade to 48-bits Long LBA,
which supports up to 144 petabytes, if each sector is 512 bytes.
However, this solution requires the use of a newer 64-bit operating
system (e.g. Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X) and a motherboard
that supports UEFI.

Source The New Advanced Format Drives


Further reading

  • Windows support for hard disks that are larger than 2 TB goes into a lot more detail on this subject.






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Will a 4TB external hard drive work on Windows XP?


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3 years, 8 months ago


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I’m still on XP, and was wondering will a new external hard drive still work on XP? I heard XP can only handle up to 2 TB.

  • windows-xp
  • external-hard-drive






2

If it’s 64-bit XP there shouldn’t be a problem. But if you’re running 32-bit XP, there’s a limit of 2048 GB (2TB) that it will access. You can try ASR3TB+Unlocker but, I don’t know if it will work on a USB connected drive. Also, Windows will reserve some of the space. So instead of 4TB you may end up with about 3.5TB






1

Many external drives can use cheap translation tricks to have less percieved sectors as larger sectors, then it works. (no 32bit big number problem).

«When the drive is inside the enclosure, it becomes a «USB mass storage device» and the firmware on the USB-SATA bridge board then presents a sector size of 4096 bytes to the host» And other methods like presenting as 2 partitions or something.

The problem with this is some software that works at low levels does not understand, just like some people (inc me) and you should avoid whatever software it is that presents the disk wrongly.
Removal of the external and putting it on a regular sata internal then it still needs a trick to get to it all. like disk wizard translation method. There can be limited support from the makers to assist you with that, because most people have moved on to systems that fully support.

So check with the product specs and see what they say about it. Prefer to avoid it with the 32bit OS if it was just an option. make sure the data on it is secured elsewhere. always remember that strange things can present itself before using a software that claims to «fix» some disk oddity. Do research before trying to stuff it in internal, wherein it would be a normal 4T internal (in most of these drives).

Conclusion: The translation will be transparent to the user, and things will just work like you would expect them to work, plug it in and go. Then if you start messing with it or have troubles, your going to want to know a lot more before pushing buttons on other lower level disk software, and before changing its hardware.









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Support for hard drives larger than 2 TB in Windows — Windows Server

  • Article
  • Reading takes 9 minutes

This article describes how Windows supports hard drives larger than 2 TB and explains how to initialize and segment them to maximize space usage.

Applies to: Windows Server 2022 Standard and Datacenter, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2
Original KB Number: 2581408

2 terabytes (2 TB or 2 trillion bytes), the device must be initialized with a GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme. This scheme supports addressing the entire storage capacity range. If the user plans to start the computer from one of these high-capacity drives, the underlying firmware interface must be the Common EFI Interface (UEFI) and not the BIOS.

This article describes Microsoft support for all versions of Windows starting with Windows XP. It also describes the requirements for addressing the full range of storage capacity of such devices.

  • This article describes disk capacity in power of 2, not 10, which is the most common storage device label. Thus, under the capacity of 2 TB , in fact, we mean a product whose label indicates 2. 2 TB capacity.
  • The operating system behaviors described in this article also apply to server versions of these operating systems. Therefore, the information for Windows 7 applies to Windows Server 2008 R2, for Windows Vista to Windows Server 2008, and for Windows XP to Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2.

Additional information

Modern storage devices are managed by a scheme called «LBA». LBA is the location of the logical sectors that make up the media. LBA0 represents the first logical sector of the device, and LBA with the last designation represents the last logical sector of the device, one label per sector. To determine the capacity of a storage device, multiply the number of logical sectors in the device by the size of each logical sector. The current size standard is 512 bytes. For example, to get a device with a capacity of 2 TB, you need 3,906,250,000 sectors of 512 bytes. However, a computer system needs 32 bits (1st and 0th) to represent this number. Thus, storage of any capacity greater than the value that can be displayed using 32 bits requires an extra bit. That is 33 bits.

The problem with this calculation is that most modern Windows computers use a master boot record (MBR) partitioning scheme. This scheme places a limit on the number of bits available for mapping logical sectors to 32 bits.

The 2 TB limit is caused by this 32-bit limit. Due to the fact that the maximum number that can be represented using 32 bits is 4,294,967,295, this translates to 2.19 when using 512-byte sectors.9 TB (approximately 2.2 TB). Therefore, addressing a capacity greater than 2.2 TB is not possible using the MBR partitioning scheme.

To increase the number of addressable bits, the storage device must be initialized with GPT. This partitioning scheme allows up to 64 bits of information to be used in logical sectors. This creates a theoretical limit of 9.4 ZB (9.4 zettabytes or 9.4 billion terabytes). However, when using GPT, you may encounter a problem due to the fact that most of the systems currently available are based on the outdated BIOS platform. The BIOS only supports starting computers from disks initialized with the MBR. To restart a device initialized with GPT, the system must support UEFI. By default, many current systems may support UEFI. Microsoft expects UEFI to support most systems in the future. Customers should check with their system vendor to confirm their systems’ ability to support UEFI and drives larger than 2TB.

General requirements for a data volume not used for startup.

In order for the system to access the maximum capacity of a device larger than 2 TB, the following conditions must be met:

  • The disk must be initialized with GPT.

  • You must be using one of the following versions of Windows (32-bit or 64-bit unless otherwise noted, but regardless of SKU version):

    • Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit versions only)
    • Windows Server 2008
    • Windows 7
    • Windows Vista
  • You need to install the latest mass storage drivers from the storage controller manufacturer. For example, if your system is using an Intel storage controller that is set to RAID mode, make sure you have the latest applicable drivers from the Intel support site installed.

  • In general, contact your system vendor to determine if your system supports device sizes larger than 2 TB.

General requirements for a bootable system volume

Assume that the following conditions are required:

  • Use a storage device that can install Windows.
  • Make the storage device bootable.
  • Enable the operating system to provide a maximum storage capacity for this device that is greater than 2 TB.

The following prerequisites apply to these conditions:

  • The drive must be initialized with GPT.

  • System firmware must use UEFI.

  • The version of Windows must be one of the following (64-bit only, but includes all SKUs):

    • Windows Server 2008 R2
    • Windows Server 2008
    • Windows 7
    • Windows Vista
  • You need to install the latest mass storage drivers from the storage controller manufacturer. For example, if your system uses an Intel storage controller that is set to mode RAID , make sure you have installed the latest applicable drivers from the Intel support site.

Note.

Windows does not support starting GPT-initialized volumes with UEFI systems on 32-bit versions of Windows. In addition, legacy BIOS systems do not support running volumes with GPT partitioning. Check with your system vendor to determine if your system supports both UEFI and running devices with storage capacity greater than 2TB.

Support Matrix

The following tables list Microsoft’s support for the various concepts discussed in this article. This information contains a general statement of support for drives with a storage capacity greater than 2 TB.

Table 1. Windows support for partition schemes as data volumes

System MBR Hybrid-MBR GPT
Windows 7 Supported Not supported Supported
Windows Vista Supported Not supported Supported
Windows XP Supported Not supported Not supported

Hybrid-MBR is an alternate partitioning style that is not supported by any version of Windows.

Table 2. Windows support for system firmware

System BIOS UEFI
Windows 7 Supported Supported
Windows Vista Supported Supported
Windows XP Supported Not supported

Table 3. Windows support for boot firmware combinations and partition schemes for boot volume

System BIOS + MBR UEFI+GPT BIOS + GPT UEFI+MBR
Windows 7 Supported Supported;
requires 64-bit Windows
Boot volume not supported Boot volume not supported
Windows Vista Supported Supported;
requires Windows 9 64-bit0155

Boot volume not supported Boot volume not supported
Windows XP Supported Not supported Boot volume not supported Boot volume not supported

>Single 2TB drive — MBR >Single 2TB drive — Hybrid-MBR >One 2TB drive — GPT Windows 7 Supports up to 2 TB of addressable capacity** Not supported Supports full capacity Windows Vista Supports up to 2 TB of addressable capacity** Not supported Supports full capacity Windows XP Supports up to 2 TB of addressable capacity** Not supported Not supported

A capacity greater than 2 TB cannot be accessed by Windows if the disk is initialized with the MBR partitioning scheme. For example, for a single 3TB disk initialized with MBR, Windows can partition up to the first 2TB. However, the remaining capacity may not be available and therefore usable.

Data disk initialization with GPT

The following shows how to initialize a new drive using the GPT partitioning scheme to give Windows the maximum available storage capacity. Before following these steps, make sure you have backed up your important data.

  1. Click the Start button , type diskmgmt.msc in the Start search box, right-click «diskmgmt.msc» and select Run as administrator . If necessary, enter credentials for a user account with administrator rights.

    Note.

    When an uninitialized drive is detected, Windows will open the following window asking you to initialize the drive.

  2. In the Disk Initialization dialog box, click GUID Partition Table (GPT) and click OK.

    Note.

    If you select this option, this hard drive will not be recognized by versions of Windows earlier than Windows XP.

  3. Check Disk Management to make sure the disk is initialized. If so, the status bar for that drive at the bottom of the window should indicate that drive is connected to .

  4. After initializing the disk, you need to create a partition and then format it using the file system. It must be able to store data on this partition and assign it a name and drive letter. To do this, right-click the Unallocated space on the right side of the status bar for this drive and select command Create simple volume . Follow the Partition Wizard to complete the process.

Converting an MBR disk to GPT

If you previously initialized the disk using the MBR partition scheme, follow these steps to initialize the disk using the GPT scheme. Before following these steps, make sure you have backed up your important data.

  1. Click Start , type diskmgmt.msc in the box Start searching for , right-click «diskmgmt.msc» and select Run as administrator . If necessary, enter credentials for a user account with administrator rights.

  2. In the Disk Management window, look at the disk status lines at the bottom. In the following example, the user has a 3 TB disk that was previously initialized with the MBR partitioning scheme. This device is labeled here as disc 1 .

  3. Disk 1 contains two separate unallocated partitions. This division means that the first 2 TB of disk space can be used. However, the remaining space is not addressable due to the limitation of the 32-bit address space of the MBR partitioning scheme. In order for the system to fully utilize the total capacity of the storage device, the disk must be converted to use the GPT partitioning scheme.

  4. Right-click the label on the left of the disk you want to convert and select Convert to GPT Disk .

    Note.

    The display should now show the total amount of free space in the unallocated space.

  5. Now that the drive is initialized to access its full storage capacity, you need to create a partition and then format it with the file system. It must be able to store data on this partition and assign it a name and drive letter. To do this, right-click the Unallocated space on the right side of the status bar for this drive and select command Create simple volume . Follow the Partition Wizard to complete the process.

Known issues or limitations

Since the migration to a single drive larger than 2 TB is fairly recent, Microsoft has looked into how Windows supports these large drives. The results show several issues that apply to all earlier versions of Windows, including Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.

The following incorrect behavior is currently known to occur when running Windows with a single drive larger than 2 TB: This results in the system only being able to use a capacity greater than 2 TB. For example, on a 3 TB drive, the available capacity might be only 1 TB.

  • Numeric capacity over 2 TB is truncated. The result is no more than 2 TB of addressable space. For example, on a 3 TB drive, the available capacity might be only 2 TB.

  • The storage device was not detected correctly. In this case, it does not appear in the Device Manager or Disk Management windows. Many storage controller manufacturers offer updated drivers that support storage capacities greater than 2 TB. Check with your storage controller manufacturer or hardware manufacturer to determine what download support is available for a single drive larger than 2 TB.

  • SCSI content

    If the drive encounters errors related to unreadable or writable partitions, it reports those errors and the corresponding SCSI content to the operating system. SCSI meaningful data can contain LBA information for partitions that are not readable or writable.

    For an LBA address space larger than 2 TB, the drive requires SCSI meaningful data in descriptor format. This format is not supported by Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, which receive SCSI meaningful data in a fixed format. Therefore, the received SCSI meaningful data either does not contain information about invalid sectors, or contains incorrect information about invalid sectors. Administrators need to be aware of this limitation when looking for bad sector LBAs recorded in the Windows event log. 916 equals 65536, and a cluster size of 64 KB results in a maximum of 4 GB.

    The HPFS (High Performance File System) file system uses 32-bit fields to accommodate larger partitions, but the maximum file size is 4 GB. The file system divides disk space into 512 byte sectors, which can cause problems in Asian hard drive markets where 1024 byte sectors are used, i.e. the HPFS file system will not be suitable (however, this file system is not supported on Windows XP and later later versions).

    The NTFS file system allocates 64 bits for storing any file size, which allows you to reach a maximum size of 16 Exabytes! (18446744073709551616 bytes). However, Windows NT does not support partitions of this size.

    For IDE drives, the maximum size is 136.9 GB. Older IDE drives have an even tighter limit of 504MB. The new EIDE drives are certainly much larger.

    It is important to note that the size of the system partition (that is, the partition containing NTLDR, BOOT.INI, etc.) must not exceed the size of the first 7.8 GB of the hard disk (this restriction also applies to partitions that are both system and boot). The limitation is related to the INT 13H interrupt interface, which is used by the NTLDR bootloader and provided by the BIOS. The interface is used to boot up to the moment of initialization of native hard disk drivers with an IDE or SCSI interface. The INT 13H interface supports the use of 24-bit parameters to specify the disk cylinder/head/sector. If, after defragmentation, the system boot area is moved beyond the driver initialization point, the system will become unbootable.

    The 7.8 GB limit is valid only for an IDE hard drive with 255 heads and 63 sectors. The real limitation is the 1024th cylinder. If the maximum number of heads is 16 (as required for some IDE drives), the NTLDR, BOOT.INI, and so on files must reside within the first 504 MB. The situation with incorrect use of disks/BIOS at one time worsened, as manufacturers burned disk images to single partitions with a size of 20 or 30 GB, and on those systems whose INT 13H interface does not support partitions of this size.

    The boot process starts with the BIOS, not the Windows NT system settings. In doing so, the BIOS finds the start of the partition using three values: start head, start cylinder, and start sector.

    The ending area of ​​a partition is defined by three similar values. The disk head is defined by an 8-bit value in the range 0–255. A cylinder is defined by a 10-bit value in the range 0-1023 (1024 cylinders). A sector is defined by a 6-bit number ranging from 1 to 63 (63 sectors). (Note that the value 0 cannot be used as a sector number.) Therefore, the maximum disk sector available through the BIOS settings is the sector with head 255, cylinder 1023, and sector 63.