Hard Disk - Reformatting to full level

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Guest

Hi, my problem is that when running Windows 98 I bought a second hard disk which was greater than the 32GB limit imposed by Windows 98 File structure however to use the disk I formatted and installed it to be a 32 GB drive. Now that I have upgraded to XP i would like to be able to format the drive to its full capacity but cannot as XP appears to only allow me to format it to 32GB.

How can I make the drive use its full capacity rather than its cut down capacity?
 
Here is how you do it! Its not really hard.

Right click on My Computer ICON under the start menu

Goto manage

Goto Disk Management

On the right it will show you all the drives installed on your PC

Select the drive you wish to format

Right click on that drive partition and you should be able to select Delete
partition

After that Right click again and create partition and it should allow you to
use the whole drive disk space.

After that Right click on that drive again and select format.

Then you should be all set.!

I hope this helps
Tom Page said:
Hi, my problem is that when running Windows 98 I bought a second hard disk
Click to expand...
which was greater than the 32GB limit imposed by Windows 98 File structure
however to use the disk I formatted and installed it to be a 32 GB drive.
Now that I have upgraded to XP i would like to be able to format the drive
to its full capacity but cannot as XP appears to only allow me to format it
to 32GB.
How can I make the drive use its full capacity rather than its cut down
Click to expand...
capacity?
 
I believe the limitation is for FAT32. If you format NTFS, you should get
the full drive.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

Tom Page said:
Hi, my problem is that when running Windows 98 I bought a second hard disk
Click to expand...
which was greater than the 32GB limit imposed by Windows 98 File structure
however to use the disk I formatted and installed it to be a 32 GB drive.
Now that I have upgraded to XP i would like to be able to format the drive
to its full capacity but cannot as XP appears to only allow me to format it
to 32GB.
How can I make the drive use its full capacity rather than its cut down
Click to expand...
capacity?
 
I don't think you believe that Michael. I am "certain" that you know that
(-;
 
Hi, Tom.

There seems to be some misunderstanding here. According to Microsoft, the
limitations are imposed by the File System (FAT32 v. NTFS), not by the
Operating System (Windows 98 v. Windows XP). Also, the limitations are per
VOLUME (primary partition or logical drive in the extended partition),
rather than by the physical drive. Thus a 200 GB HD could have five 40 GB
volumes on it.

The only 32 GB limit in recent years is the one imposed by Microsoft to
encourage us to abandon FAT and move to NTFS as soon as possible. Win2K and
WinXP will not format a >32 GB volume to FAT32, although they can happily
use a larger FAT32 volume formatted by another OS, such as Win98. And Win98
will format a volume as large as about 127 GB.

See this page for details:
Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp

As hustedj said, just use WinXP's Disk Management to partition the HD and
format the volumes to suit yourself - unless you need to format a
larger-than-32-GB volume as FAT32.

The only reason to keep FAT32 now is if you plan to install Win9x/ME on this
computer. NTFS is much more secure, both in the sense of security from
unauthorized access and in the sense of security from HD glitches. And the
speed advantage that FAT enjoyed on smaller HDs has disappeared with today's
HDs.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

Tom Page said:
Hi, my problem is that when running Windows 98 I bought a second hard disk
Click to expand...
which was greater than the 32GB limit imposed by Windows 98 File structure
however to use the disk I formatted and installed it to be a 32 GB drive.
Now that I have upgraded to XP i would like to be able to format the drive
to its full capacity but cannot as XP appears to only allow me to format it
to 32GB.
How can I make the drive use its full capacity rather than its cut down
Click to expand...
capacity?
 
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