fdisk

**Shard92** · November 20th, 2003, 03:45 PM

Anyone know if there is a limit with the old fdisk command? On larger drives it won't see the whole drive. I know about the 137gb limit and all but I just tried to install an 80 gb on a computer running win98se and it saw it as a 10gb. I was able to use software ( ezbios ) to get around this but I thought 98se could support right up to the 137 gb limit? Other cases where I've seen this it's because the computer didn't recognize the hard drive but in this case the computer is seeing it as an 80 gb. Any one have any ideas what's up? i looked on MS website but all they talk about is how fat32 supports up to 2 terabytes and all that crap.

**kato2274** · November 20th, 2003, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by Shard92

Anyone know if there is a limit with the old fdisk command? On larger drives it won't see the whole drive. I know about the 137gb limit and all but I just tried to install an 80 gb on a computer running win98se and it saw it as a 10gb. I was able to use software ( ezbios ) to get around this but I thought 98se could support right up to the 137 gb limit? Other cases where I've seen this it's because the computer didn't recognize the hard drive but in this case the computer is seeing it as an 80 gb. Any one have any ideas what's up? i looked on MS website but all they talk about is how fat32 supports up to 2 terabytes and all that crap.

fdisk? you're still using that? you gotta get yourself a copy of partition magic or at the very least get all the setup disks from the drive makers. I save almost 20-30 minutes every time I use one of those options as opposed to fdisk.

**arch0nmyc0n** · November 20th, 2003, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by kato2274

fdisk? you're still using that? you gotta get yourself a copy of partition magic or at the very least get all the setup disks from the drive makers. I save almost 20-30 minutes every time I use one of those options as opposed to fdisk.

Or you could use Free FDisk and eliminate the "Verifying drive intergrity" and it takes all of 10 seconds and a reboot...

http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

I believe that is the site where I got it from. It should also have a link to the Free Format I use that allows quick formats on newly partitioned drives...

**shamus** · November 20th, 2003, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by arch0nmyc0n

Or you could use Free FDisk and eliminate the "Verifying drive intergrity" and it takes all of 10 seconds and a reboot...

http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

I believe that is the site where I got it from. It should also have a link to the Free Format I use that allows quick formats on newly partitioned drives...

Thanks!

**Rô©kHøµñÐ** · November 20th, 2003, 08:41 PM

You could use a linux boot CD like gentoo or knoppix and really knock time off the format time. It is also free.

**Bigdog632** · November 20th, 2003, 11:04 PM

you could check the bios also updating it may help with the hard drive issue i have seen a few older systems that wouldnt detect the bigger drives due to their bios but they were very old(in computer years)

**3D Prophet III** · November 20th, 2003, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Shard92

Anyone know if there is a limit with the old fdisk command? On larger drives it won't see the whole drive. I know about the 137gb limit and all but I just tried to install an 80 gb on a computer running win98se and it saw it as a 10gb. I was able to use software ( ezbios ) to get around this but I thought 98se could support right up to the 137 gb limit? Other cases where I've seen this it's because the computer didn't recognize the hard drive but in this case the computer is seeing it as an 80 gb. Any one have any ideas what's up? i looked on MS website but all they talk about is how fat32 supports up to 2 terabytes and all that crap.

Win98se only supports up to 64gb, but you can get the fix and explaination here.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...44&Product=w98

**Platypus** · November 21st, 2003, 02:07 AM

G'day 3D Prophet, nice to see you around!

I believe the FDISK from WinME will do the trick too.

**confus-ed** · November 21st, 2003, 05:09 AM

Originally Posted by 3D Prophet III

Win98se only supports up to 64gb, but you can get the fix and explaination here.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...44&Product=w98

Don't forget with this that 'format' is still 'wrong' too (exactly the same cause) .. it does however 'work' correctly even if some of what it says while working is wrong ... Format Displays Size of Partitions or Logical Drives Larger Than 64 GB Incorrectly - 263045

BTW there's a 'good' reason why FDisk is sooooo sloooooow, it does a sector by sector check, none of the 'other' methods do, you may or may not consider this 'necessary', if you have any 'slight' disk imperfections FDisk is more likely to find & avoid them (mapping them out of ordinary usage) doing this, than other methods will

... however it is slooooooow, but with good reason.

**arch0nmyc0n** · November 21st, 2003, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

BTW there's a 'good' reason why FDisk is sooooo sloooooow, it does a sector by sector check, none of the 'other' methods do, you may or may not consider this 'necessary', if you have any 'slight' disk imperfections FDisk is more likely to find & avoid them (mapping them out of ordinary usage) doing this, than other methods will

... however it is slooooooow, but with good reason.

True, and on older drives where I suspect or know of problems I do use the "normal" fdisk and format (or the manufacturers disk) to make sure everything is found. However, I trust new drives quite a bit more than old ones. So the way I do it, it takes (depending on reboot time) about 30 seconds. May not be as safe as you say I haven't checked the surface properly, but I've never really run into a problem yet.

**Shard92** · November 21st, 2003, 02:10 PM

Thanks all I remember hearing about the 64 gb limit but that was about it. And like I said when I searched MS website I couldn't find anything about it.

**orkalass** · November 21st, 2003, 02:58 PM

First off, the 137GB max you were talking about was with the old IDE controllers and has nothing to do with ANY program's incompatibility. Secondly, as they said, as long as windows recognizes your disk being its full size, then fdisk will too. It might not say it but it will format the entire thing. Secondly, if you wanna format your non-windows partition in windows, just use Computer Management to do it.

**Ya_know** · November 21st, 2003, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by orkalass

First off, the 137GB max you were talking about was with the old IDE controllers and has nothing to do with ANY program's incompatibility. .

Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows XP

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

**Shard92** · November 21st, 2003, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by orkalass

First off, the 137GB max you were talking about was with the old IDE controllers and has nothing to do with ANY program's incompatibility. Secondly, as they said, as long as windows recognizes your disk being its full size, then fdisk will too. It might not say it but it will format the entire thing. Secondly, if you wanna format your non-windows partition in windows, just use Computer Management to do it.

Well you are part right. You can get a card to handle the hd but, xp needs sp1 to support larger disks and win2000 needs sp3. Also as was said windows 98 fdisk will only fdisk 64 gb without getting the "patch" ( actually a replacement for fdisk program. ). Yes format will format the whole thing.... as long is it is partitioned correctly....( ie new fdisk command ). Oh and what do you mean non-windows partition? and it's also hard to use computer management from a boot disk.

Oh for those wondering we used datalifeguardv11 from western digital to format the disk. then transfer their existing windows to the new disk.

**BIGGS** · November 22nd, 2003, 11:02 AM

i used a copy of fdisk to fdisk my 160gb raid array, even though it didnt report it being the right size it still worked, then i did a full format on it and everything was a o k

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