The 48-bit LBA limitation (137 DECIMAL GIGABYTES) works out to about 128
BINARY GIGABYTES, but by the time you get done taking away master boot
records, partition boot records, directorys, FAT tables (or MFT tables),
it's probably down to about 120 Binary gigabytes, which is how Windows
re****ts it.
He should be able to use the XP Upgrade CD to do a clean install to a
totally blank hard drive by inserting the previous product CD (Windows
2000) into the CD drive after starting the upgrade.
There is, however, an issue: If his Windows XP upgrade CD is pre-SP2,
it won't sup****t 48-bit LBA. In that case, he needs to do an initial
installation to a partition smaller than 137 Decimal GB (about 128
binary GB), and then, later, resize the partition (which will require a
3rd party software product). If his Windows XP upgrade CD is SP2 or
later, he can do an initial install on the full size hard drive.
[All of that not withstanding, there are good arguments for not making
the C: drive (partition) as large as 250 GB .... with a drive that
large, it may be a good idea to partition the drive anyway.
Bill Eitner wrote:
> eDawg wrote:
>> I currently have a Windows 2000 Pro System with an 80 Gig Hard disk as
>> the primary and a 250 Gig as the secondary. The secondary disk is only
>> seen as a 120 Gig disk and from what I read this is a limitation of
>> Windows that was fixed in Windows XP Service Pack 1.
>
> I've never heard of that limitation.
> It sounds more like the 137 GB BIOS
> limitation. You may want to research
> that to arrive at a definitive answer.
> Hard drive manufacturers usually have
> info on their websites about that sort
> of thing. That is where I would start.
>
>> I am going to upgrade the system to Windows XP Sp 2 using the upgrade
CD.
>
> Why? With older hardware 2000 works better
> (is more responsive).
>
>> But I also want to upgrade the primary Hard Disk to a 250 Gig Disk.
>
> Okay. Again, look into the possibility of
> a 137 GB BIOS limitation. Up until just
> recently I was using a 2001 vintage Shuttle
> mainboard that had that limitation and no
> manufacturer-provided BIOS update. The
> last setup was a 320 GB drive and a 400 GB
> drive. To get around the limitation I ran
> one drive on a PCI IDE expansion card and
> the other with an overlay (aka Dynamic Drive
> Overlay). Neither solution required XP.
> The rest of the system hardware was: a 900
> MHz Athlon processor and 1 GB of 100 MHz
> SDRAM. The mainboard, processor and memory
> was given to me in 2003. In those days there
> was a rash of mainboards that had defective
> filter capacitors (http://www.badcaps.net/)
> The bad capacitors caused frequent lockups.
> I changed out all of the effected capacitors
> and used the mainboard, processor and memory
> for close to 5 years. Now I'm running a 2004
> setup and the above setup is helping others
> learn about computers at the non-profit school
> I attend.
>
>> I think I am painting myself into a corner here. If I put in a brand
>> new Disk for the primary and I try to use the Win XP SP2 upgrade CD
>> will the upgrade process fail?
>
> Probably. Upgrade means just that.
> On the other hand, I forget. Just
> having the 2000 disk may be enough.
> Again, the drive limitation is not
> a good reason to change to XP.
>
>> I own the original Windows 2000 Pro Installation CD. Will the Win XP
>> Upgrade CD be happy to see that CD or is it going to be demanding some
>> traces of Win 2000 on the Hard Disk?
>
> I forget. I believe that having the disk
> is enough--but I may be wrong. If it were
> me, I'd look to other solutions and not
> look to the installation of XP to solve
> your problem.
>
>> Thanks!
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