max size of an external hard drive?

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I am looking to add an external hard drive to my computer (its a windows xp
home edtion computer, made by compaq (sr1811nx). I have read on a few sites
that an external hard drive cannot exceed 133 gigs of storage space. I know
that my local computer store sells external hard drive enclosures (usb 2.0)
and they list the maximum size of a drive for this enclosure is 400 gb. I
also have seen that you can purchase a maxtor III external hard drive with a
capacity of 500 gb. In either case, if I choose the purchase my own
enclosure and add a 400 gig (ide or eide, I get those two mixed up) hard
drive or go the route of purchasing the maxtor external drive (with backup
software) will I have any problems in using the drive.

I once had a 120 gig hard drive on a windows 2000 server setup in raid mode
(single hard drive but the raid controller was the only place I could set the
drive up on). Anyway to make a long story short, the hard drive would give
me a write error at a certain point and data would be lost when I tried to
write lots of data on the hard drive. By the same situation, when I looked
on the web, I saw that hard drives beyond 133 gb would give the same write
error with my 120 gig drive in windows 2000. As soon as I moved the 120 gig
harddrive somewhere else, no more write errors.

So I need advice on how to get around the large harddrive problem (if it is
still there) for my windows xp machine (using a usb 2.0 connection).
 
Format the external drive as NTFS and you can use most any size drive that
you are able to purchase. I don't know of any limitations that the external
enclosure can impose that would alter this fact.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
I am looking to add an external hard drive to my computer (its a windows xp
home edtion computer, made by compaq (sr1811nx). I have read on a few sites
that an external hard drive cannot exceed 133 gigs of storage space. I know
that my local computer store sells external hard drive enclosures (usb 2.0)
and they list the maximum size of a drive for this enclosure is 400 gb. I
also have seen that you can purchase a maxtor III external hard drive with a
capacity of 500 gb. In either case, if I choose the purchase my own
enclosure and add a 400 gig (ide or eide, I get those two mixed up) hard
drive or go the route of purchasing the maxtor external drive (with backup
software) will I have any problems in using the drive.

I once had a 120 gig hard drive on a windows 2000 server setup in raid mode
(single hard drive but the raid controller was the only place I could set the
drive up on). Anyway to make a long story short, the hard drive would give
me a write error at a certain point and data would be lost when I tried to
write lots of data on the hard drive. By the same situation, when I looked
on the web, I saw that hard drives beyond 133 gb would give the same write
error with my 120 gig drive in windows 2000. As soon as I moved the 120 gig
harddrive somewhere else, no more write errors.

So I need advice on how to get around the large harddrive problem (if it is
still there) for my windows xp machine (using a usb 2.0 connection).
Click to expand...

If you're properly patched there's no problem. I've got a 400gb
external on this box.

Unpatched XP supports only 137gb. It makes no difference if it's
internal or external.
 
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