Help Urgently Required... W2K

[muddyfox470]

Ok

I have just put a new system together (a64 etc) and am going to install windows 2000 pro.

First problem is that in bios etc my sata drivers are recognised as 203gb, but when i am in the install part of w2k it only recognises it as 133 or whatever.

Ok these SATA harddrives (2*200gb - maxtor 10) already have partitions on and i want to delete the first one, c: the one with all the existing install etc.

Ok so as my harddrive is already partitioned accordingly what do i do? As the windows install only recognises 2 of the 3 partitions on each of the drives to make 133gb totally recognised instead of 200gb. Ahhh should i continue and after install all 200gb will be tehre, or whatelse do i need to do? Before there has been no problem with windows recognising only 133gb (when i installed it on my old hardware; xp2500+ etc etc it recognised all 200gb.)

Help me please asap, before i fook up my install and delete all my precious music etc! Ahhhhhhhhhh i am going crazy.

Thanks in anticipation

Ian

Spec of new PC:
A8N SLi DELUXE (Bios 1011)
Venice 3000+
Aforementioned Harddrives
1024mb of Patriot DDR RAM

Please help i need it!

[mike_w]

Once you install the latest Service Pack, I think it should recognise the drive in its entirerity.

[MD]

once you have installed it on the drive boot into windows as normal and then go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management (Local).

You will then see the remaining hard drive space that windows cannot allocate on install, you can format that part of the drive there and then to be a separate partion of usable space.

The service packs you have installed will make no difference, the 133 odd GB is a limitation of the Windows install originally and affects 2k and XP likewise.

m@

[muddyfox470]

So everything should be alright, the previous partition with all my lovely music etc?

Any reason it isn't recognising it now, but it has done before?

I was told that i didn't need to use the NVidia chipset drivers on floppy as i am not creating a rai array is this correct?

Thanks again

Ian

[MD]

yeah this is a limitation of windows, when windows, especially 2k came out the thought of drives greater than 133 had not even been contemplated, just follow the detaisl as above and the drive space that was unallocated on original format can be made into an additional partition.

You will see it in there shown as unallocated, right click on it then tell it what you want to do with the unallocated space.

[muddyfox470]

Matt. i don't want to format the existing partition as it has a hell of a load of stuff i need to keep on it! I thought installing would only affect one partition oops i am in a bit of a panic now! But i will refrain from clicking buttons until told what to do to save my partitions and my data!

Sorry for all these posts but i am in a bit of a panic and well i dont want to break anything!

Ian

[MD]

can you not get all the data off one of the 200Gb drvies and put it on the other? Then when you do your windows install you can create a partition on the empty drive, it will let you choose that on setup. But it will only recognise 133GB or so on install. Once the install is completed you can then get the other 70 or so GB on the new installed drive back through the above way.

Do you really have more than 133GB total data?

m@

[muddyfox470]

No i dont have more than 133 total data it is just spread over all the different partitions. I prob have no more than 100gb so far!

But thanks for your info i was going to try and do the fresh install and update to sp4 and see if it would recognise it - would this do anything? Or won't it work!?

Thanks

Ian

[MD]

cant give you a definitive yes or not to it being fine, every time I format i copy all the data to one drive, take it out of the machine and lock it in a cupboard, then I make the other drive primary and install away, once complete the drive with all the data gets plugged back in and transferred back, this way there is no risk of data loss.

m@

[mike_w]

I always thought SP3 and forwards solved the problem - it allows 48-Bit LBA something or other, which is required for larger drives:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;305098

Personally, I would install SP4 anyway - it's always good to be up to date (so long as it doesn't break anything!).

[muddyfox470]

W00t it works!

It feels like creating frankenstein.

After someone else told me not to use the floppy i got the above problem. But when i used the floppy and used the 'nvidia storage driver' it worked and it recognised all my partitions, so i think that i will be up all night

Thanks again to all you helpful chaps

I love you in a friendly sort of way

Ian

[muddyfox470]

Ok well the story continues...

I used the NVidia Storage drive off the flopp, but windows doesn't certify it, so when going through the last stages the following happens.

A box comes up that Windows has detected some unknown hardware.
(Despite windows recognising all the 200gb this time).

Clicking yes... (continue install) will allow for the whole thing to install but once booting up into windows the network setup and the logon screen appears for about 5 secs before the PC shuts down. (this isnt a psuproblem btw). I can boot into safe mode but it won't let me install the sp4 cd So no luck there.

Clicking no... just allows windows to continue the install (albeit without the drivers) but only recognises the 4 partitions (instead of the 6 - i.e. only the 137gb or w.e.) so that is another problem

So what can i do?

I have just created some boot disks to install w2k with sp3 so i will let you know what happens before lunch!

Thanks again

Any help very much appreciated

Ian

[MD]

personally, I would be copying all the data to one drive and install windows on a fresh drive, theres no guarantees any other way that you are not going to lose data.

If its that precious to you, get it all on one drive and install windows on the empty one, I really wouldn't bother with all the boot disks and crap as when you install windows you will only have one HDD installed. Once windows is installed, drop the drive in and it will be fully recognised.

The 133GB limit is due to the format in the windows setup, so doing it this way will keep all your data with the least fuss.

m@

[herulach]

I dotn know about win2k, but for xp if you can slipstream sp2 onto the install disk then you dont have that particular problem, so tha might be worth a try, any reason why youre not using xp anyway?

[muddyfox470]

DONE... or i hope so.

What i did was install the sp2 version of windows.

Booted up into safe mode (after all had installed) and ran the nvidia nforce drivers form the hard drive (as the partition could now be seen because i used the floppy) and well after installing the nforce stuff i am now able to boot up into windows as normal.

So hopefully my pc should be up and running some time this evening!

w00000000t

Ian

PS. Thank you all for your generous amount of help