Why would "Create Partition" under Disk Management be greyed out?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David F
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David F

Running W2K+SP4.
Logged on as admin.

I plugged in a new disk as the second HD.
When running Computer Management->Storage and select
Disk Management, I see on the graph disk 1 recognizing the
new drive with the proper size. But when I right click in the
disk 1 area, the "Create Partition" is greyed out. So I can't
proceed with putting the drive into use.

Any idea? Is there any specific policy I need to set to allow
it? (albeit that in the past I could partition a new drive with
capacity = 300GB).

Thanks,
David
 
David F said:
Running W2K+SP4.
Logged on as admin.

I plugged in a new disk as the second HD.
When running Computer Management->Storage and select
Disk Management, I see on the graph disk 1 recognizing the
new drive with the proper size. But when I right click in the
disk 1 area, the "Create Partition" is greyed out. So I can't
proceed with putting the drive into use.

Any idea? Is there any specific policy I need to set to allow
it? (albeit that in the past I could partition a new drive with
capacity = 300GB).

Thanks,
David
Click to expand...

You may have to initialise the disk before creating partitions.
Right-click the disk in the left margin, then select "Initialise".
 
I didn't see any such option as "Initialize". Maybe this is an
Win XP option. As I wrote, I am running W2K. I guess my problem
has to do something with setting a permission somewhere.

Anyway, I found on my Win XP CD a utility called Diskpart.exe.
I could use it to create a partition on the drive and then proceed
with W2K's Disk Management to format that partition.

David
 
Running W2K+SP4.
Logged on as admin.

I plugged in a new disk as the second HD.
When running Computer Management->Storage and select
Disk Management, I see on the graph disk 1 recognizing the
new drive with the proper size. But when I right click in the
disk 1 area, the "Create Partition" is greyed out. So I can't
proceed with putting the drive into use.

Any idea? Is there any specific policy I need to set to allow
it? (albeit that in the past I could partition a new drive with
capacity = 300GB).

Thanks,
David
Click to expand...
you don't tell us the size of the first disk, if that is less than 300GB maybe
you should try this at some time:

Start/run/regedit
(if unsure export registry for safety)
select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
navigate to system/services/atapi/parameters or
system/currentcontrolset/services/atapi/parameters
right click for new
Select Dword name it EnableBigLba (take note of case)
set value to 1
end regedit
reboot
 
Many thanks for the experiment.
I could not see the attached files - I got this message:
"OE removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your mail: 1.zip".

Anyway, I also observed the automatic popup dialoge window offering to
"write a signature" but did not take the offer because it suggested also
the converting of the drive to a "dynamic disk" as a package deal,
which I did not want. I wanted it to be a "basic disk".
I then tried your method with another new drive and it worked (w/o
converting the drive to "dynamic disk".)

Thanks again.

Yet another problem following the partition creation: the format
operation failed with the two new drives,
so it is unlikely the drives. I also run a thorough diagnostic on one of
them,
including full low level scan and there was no problem. Both drives are
Seagate 300GB. The failure happens only at te end of completing 100%
of full formating or immediately with fast format. In either case I get the
same dumb mesaage (format failed) w/o explaning any reason.
In the past, I didn't have a problem with formatting a brand new 300GB
drive from Maxtor.
Any idea to find out WHY the formatting fails?
I was thinking on using the command line version of Format but I don't
know where to find the meaning of all related errorlevel (if it will be
useful
at all.).

Thanks,
David
 
You don't need to know the meaning of various error level
numbers - they are useful in unattended batch files. Just look
at the message(s) you see on the screen.
 
About the removed attachments: It's something that
***you*** control with your newsreader. In OE it
is under Tools / Options / Security.
 
Mistery resolved.
The drives are from Seagate and it turned out that they have
an issue with an Intel utility called "Intel Application Accelerator"
(IAA).
Once I remove that utility, no problem of using those drives.
I am confused because my motherboard's (by SuperMicro) manual
says that I MUST install it for my MB to function...

I heard that IAA's advantage is debatable.
I don't really know what IAA is doing - I guess it enforce the use
of DMA (rather then PIO) for performance purposes. If this is the
case, then it can significantly improve performance only in certain
true multi-treaded applications and OS.

Oh, I had no problem of getting your attached files after following
the change of a setting as you suggested.

Rgds,
David
 
Thanks for the feedback.


David F said:
Mistery resolved.
The drives are from Seagate and it turned out that they have
an issue with an Intel utility called "Intel Application Accelerator"
(IAA).
Once I remove that utility, no problem of using those drives.
I am confused because my motherboard's (by SuperMicro) manual
says that I MUST install it for my MB to function...

I heard that IAA's advantage is debatable.
I don't really know what IAA is doing - I guess it enforce the use
of DMA (rather then PIO) for performance purposes. If this is the
case, then it can significantly improve performance only in certain
true multi-treaded applications and OS.

Oh, I had no problem of getting your attached files after following
the change of a setting as you suggested.

Rgds,
David
Click to expand...
 
The primary (boot) drive is 40GB but it should not be relevant,
as is the case was when I used 300GB secondary drive from another
vendor.

I did follow your suggestion but it had no impact. Please see
above my other reply from several minuts ago.

Thanks,
David

 
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