External Large Capacity Drive Formatting

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brad
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Brad

I have recently bought an external USB Drive enclosure and a 400GB Drive.
When I format I only see 38GB. There have been a myriad of earlier posts
with similar problems and I am confused.

It seems I can't get to see the full capacity unless I format this drive
using fdisk--is that still true (I have XP SP2). Even then, do I still need
to patch XP2 to be able to see the full capacity? Do I need to partition the
dirve into smaller lots?

Does someone have an easy step by step procedure for using these new large
capacity drives with XP?
 
What file system did you use when formatting this USB drive?
you should have chosen NTFS.
 
Yes, I used NTFS. I initially used FAT32 but realised this was no good so
moved to NTFS--but still the problem persists.
 
38 GB seems a weird size for this statement but, to format this drive using
the full capacity you must partition and format as NTFS instead of Fat 32.
If you need Fat 32 file system for backward compatibility with older
systems, you must partition and format the drive on the older -non Win XP
system. XP format for Fat 32 is not able to format a partition larger than
32 GB.

There are some drives that have a drive size limiting jumper but I haven't
heard of a 400 GB drive with this on it.

Still having issues, try a known good drive in the enclosure and see what
happens.

Let us know what you find out.
 
This post didn't come back until I had sent my previous. Delete the
partition in Drive Manager that was created with Fat 32 format and recreate
a full size partition then reformat as NTFS. This should solve your issue.
 
Yes, I agree that 38GB is a funny number but that is what it says when I do
"properties" check. I think it is actually 37.26GB or something in the
Computer Management window (I know it is not 32GB anyway).

Can I do the "delete partition" and "recreate" then "reformat as NTFS"
within XP2 or do I need something else?

I sort of half did this already (did not do the "delete partition" step and
the drive is NTFS now (so says the Management Window) but still not 400GB. I
have read that this is an XP limitation.
 
I have another little issue--when I right click the white area next to the
drive on the Disk Management window, I don't have a "Create Partition"
option---I must be doing something wrong-- even "delete partition" is greyed
out. I can't seem get past this hurdle
 
Brad said:
I have recently bought an external USB Drive enclosure and a 400GB Drive.
When I format I only see 38GB. There have been a myriad of earlier posts
with similar problems and I am confused.

It seems I can't get to see the full capacity unless I format this drive
using fdisk--is that still true (I have XP SP2). Even then, do I still
need
to patch XP2 to be able to see the full capacity? Do I need to partition
the
dirve into smaller lots?

Does someone have an easy step by step procedure for using these new large
capacity drives with XP?
Click to expand...

You failed to indicate what is doing the "seeing" of the 38GB.
Fdisk is incapable of formatting.
You are only limited by 2 things, the USB enclosure's firmware and fdisk (if
you use that for partitioning). SP1 is adequate for this capacity hard
drive.
Dave
 
No. XP will not create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. Formatting a
pre-existing FAT32 partition larger than that is not a problem. Fdisk does
have the roll-over problem regarding reporting actual partition size. Its
hard written to the partition, so, XP will see the same thing. Which
version of fdisk determines where the rollover occurs.
 
OK, I have been able to use Disk Management to re-format and partition the
drive but still I only see 37.27GB (in the Disk Management window, also if I
do a "properties" from Explorer I get the same size.

Is it possible to use XP SP2 to format the drive to its full 400GB capacity.
My USB enclosure is a Noontec Gigasave--documentation says it can suport up
to 750GB so I don't think that is the probelm. I have previously installed
this drive in another enclosure (LAN interface) but had the similar 37GB size
limit so I purchased the USB enclosure hoping it would fix things.

I have not tried fdisk yet as I will have to resurect an old PC to do
that--I really want to use XP if at all possible.
 
My bad. XP cannot even format an existing partition over 32GB if in FAT32.
It will revert to NTFS if over that limit when attempting to format such a
FAT32 partition.
 
Remove all existing partitions from that hard drive using disk management.
How much freespace is available?
 
38,165 MB Total. I have come to the conclusion that the HDD is defective. I
have taken it back to be tested by the supplier. We will see what he comes up
with. Maybe it is the enclosure that is defective--he will check that too.
 
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