Cannot format drive larger than 137 GB under W2K

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vsevolod
  • Start date Start date
V

Vsevolod

I have bought receintly a large HDD HITACHI Deskstar of
185.2 GB capasity. Though windows does recognize the drive
and can create primary partition on it it fails formatting
it with both NTFS and FAT32. I run SP4 and have properly
adjusted EnableBigLba key in the registry (as described
in article 305098). The Disk management returens
error: "The format failed to complete sucessfully" (or
something alike). Command prompt format: "The second NTFS
boot sector is unwriteable. Format failed". I have
Supermicro P4SGA motherboard with Intel 845G chipset and
ATA 100 IDE controller.

However, if only the primary partition of 128GB is
created, it is formatted without errors. But any logical
drves in further secondary partition fail to format.

Any help will be mostly appreciated.
Thanks.

Vsevolod.
 
Thanks, Bruce.
But as I put it in my previous messageб article 305098
is not of much help.
 
You also need bios support for lba-48. You should be able to get this from
supermicro.

When you boot a dos floppy does 'fdisk /status" show 128GB?

| I have bought receintly a large HDD HITACHI Deskstar of
| 185.2 GB capasity. Though windows does recognize the drive
| and can create primary partition on it it fails formatting
| it with both NTFS and FAT32. I run SP4 and have properly
| adjusted EnableBigLba key in the registry (as described
| in article 305098). The Disk management returens
| error: "The format failed to complete sucessfully" (or
| something alike). Command prompt format: "The second NTFS
| boot sector is unwriteable. Format failed". I have
| Supermicro P4SGA motherboard with Intel 845G chipset and
| ATA 100 IDE controller.
|
| However, if only the primary partition of 128GB is
| created, it is formatted without errors. But any logical
| drves in further secondary partition fail to format.
|
 
Thanks Eric,

Windows 98 Fdisk does see the large drive and all the
partitions on it. (Though it is wrong with displaying the
drive size - appearantely because of DOS, and Windows 98
limitations).

Moreover - it defines the primary partition for the whole
drive, which later can be formated with fat32 under
Windows98 DOS environment. Still moreover, this partition
is correctly recognized by Windows 2000 and is
operational, and no errors are reported by the system.
Still moreover, the disk can be formated under Windows XP
SP1. The disk can be quired by Ontrack Smart Defender from
under Windows 2000 (SMART monitoring, reporting and
testing utility), and the disk passes all the tests with
IBM/HITACHI Drive Fitness test (low level disk utility).
Everything takes plase on the same IDE controller on the
same motherboard, thus leading me to the conclusion that
BIOS problems are the least probable clue. Or am I wrong
assuming ATA-100 ide interface to be 48-bit addressing
capable?

Again the problem is ONLY with FORMTTING under Windows
2000 of disk larger than 137 GB. And Knowlege Base article
305098 DOES NOT SOLVE it.

Vsevolod.
 
Back
Top