Disk Size Limits on NT 4?

[john]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

We have an NT 4 workstation that needs an additional hard drive, it currently
has one hard drive installed. The user is requesting a 300 GB hard drive for
this computer, the application that it is running only runs on NT so we can't
upgrade it.
What are the disk size limitations for NT4? This is an IDE controller.
Thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

The system, or boot partition (c can be 4 gig, if you look around on the
microsoft web site you can figure out how to get that up to 7.8 gig, but
that's the limit, due to a flaw in NT. The other partitons can be up to 136
gig. You can use the 300 gig drive, but you need to make 3 partitions out of
it.

"John" wrote:

> We have an NT 4 workstation that needs an additional hard drive, it currently
> has one hard drive installed. The user is requesting a 300 GB hard drive for
> this computer, the application that it is running only runs on NT so we can't
> upgrade it.
> What are the disk size limitations for NT4? This is an IDE controller.
> Thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

7.8 gB for the system partition. Depending on your hardware probably ~127 gB
for boot and or other partitions. These articles may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q224526
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;114841

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"John" wrote:
| We have an NT 4 workstation that needs an additional hard drive, it
currently
| has one hard drive installed. The user is requesting a 300 GB hard drive
for
| this computer, the application that it is running only runs on NT so we
can't
| upgrade it.
| What are the disk size limitations for NT4? This is an IDE controller.
| Thanks

 

[Calvin]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

Marvin P. Winterbottom wrote:
> The system, or boot partition (c can be 4 gig, if you look around on the
> microsoft web site you can figure out how to get that up to 7.8 gig, but
> that's the limit, due to a flaw in NT. The other partitons can be up to 136
> gig. You can use the 300 gig drive, but you need to make 3 partitions out of
> it.

Not so ! The system and boot partitions must all fit within the 7.8GB boundary,
but elsewise there are no restrictions, other than those brought about by
hardware. (eg: the 137GB size restriction imposed by the limits of standard LBA,
and this is defeatable with suitable hardware and drivers)

Have a look at http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/bigdisk.htm for a thorough examination
of NT4 and hard disk drive limitations - there are actually very few size limits
if you know what you are doing.

The NT4 Resource kits (Workstation and Server versions are available online -
see http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/links.htm for info on how to get to them) have
whole chapters on this subject.

Calvin.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

And if you REALLY know what you are doing, you could just write a patch for
NT to get around the 7.8 gig limit for the boot partition, too!

 

[Calvin]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

Hi Marvin,

Microsoft re-wrote NTLDR. for Win2k to solve this limitation. I have read
several reports here of people replacing the NT4 versions of NTDetect.com and
NTLDR. with the Win2k versions on a system and achieving this result.

I've never bothered because I consider the approach of 'one big drive' on a
computer as a cluttered and disorganised method of running a system.
Partitioning imposes some discipline and order, assists with backups and makes
failure recovery easier. The 7.8GB boundary for system and boot partitions
presents no problems, NT4 needs nothing like this amount of space.

Most systems I configure have a max 2GB FAT16 system partition and a max 2GB
NTFS boot partition and this is bucketloads of space ! you can actually 'get by'
on an optiminally managed system on 32MB for the system partition and around
500-700MB for the boot partition.

As I explain at http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au what gets done with the remainder of
the drive area as far as partition sizes, number, purpose etc... is unrelated to
the issues at boot, and any sizes within the limitations of the system hardware,
can be accommodated on NT4.

Calvin.