Re: Win2000 "C" Drive only 2.0 GB - How do I increase it?

There are a few things that you need to look at and consider.

First you have to make sure that your BIOS is 48-bit LBA compatible. By
the looks of it I'm not sure that it is, if you were only able to create
a 128GB partition your BIOS may only be 28-bit LBA capable, with a
48-Bit LBA BIOS you should have been able to create a 137GB partition.
Go in the BIOS and verify that the disk and its size is properly
recognized, if it isn't you will need a BIOS update to properly use the
remainder of the disk.

If your BIOS is 48-bit LBA capable you will have to enable 48-bit LBA large-disk support in the registry, DL has already pointed you to that information, follow the instructions in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098

You will not be able to increase the size of the present 128GB partition without the use of third party tools. After you verify the BIOS and add the EnableBigLba registry hack you can use the built-in Windows Disk Management tool to create another partition out of the remaining disk space. To start the Disk Management tool enter diskmgmt.msc in the Start menu Run box.

Third party partitioning tools can be used to increase the size of the current partition to use all the disk space but I would never do this myself and I would not advise anyone to do this with their Windows 2000 boot volume. Should your Windows 2000 installation ever need to be repaired with a chkdsk at the Recovery Console you are almost certain to corrupt the whole disk and loose everything on it as soon as chkdsk crosses the 137GB boundary. Should you ever need to perform a repair installation (in-place upgrade) of the operating system you are almost sure to run in the same kind of problems, the Windows setup program will not properly recognize the disk and the whole disk may be corrupted during the installation. For these reasons I do not advise that you increase the size of your present Windows partition to a greater size.

Should you ever need to repair or cleanly reinstall Windows 2000 on the present partition make sure that you install SP4 again and make sure that the EnableBigLba registry entry is present, if you try to copy or access files on the partition above the 137GB boundary without these you will probably corrupt the partition and loose all the files on it.

John

Jim-R wrote:

Thanks for the help! Although the directions did not match my system, I was able to delete the extended partion and do a new install of Win2000 Pro. I have also installed SP4. I now have only one partition with 127.99 GB which is much better!

How can I get this partition to recognize all 200 GB in my hard drive?

Thanks, Jim

"John John (MVP)" wrote:


I stand to be corrected but even if the installation disk is SP3 or better I still don't think that the disk will be properly seen during the text-mode portion of the setup, the text-mode portion cannot properly see or use the disk if it is larger than about 137GB. This is not the same with XP SP1 which can do 48-bit LBA without the registry hack, Windows 2000 absolutely needs the hack and it isn't in the setupreg.hiv on the installation CD.

John

DL wrote:

Either start from scratch, or use a third party tool, eg Acronis Disk Director
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304868

You need only a single partition, but see this in relation to the size of your hd, I suspect your version / installation cd for win2k is pre sp2 and as such doesnt have large disk support
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098


"Jim-R" <Jim-R@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:11112AE8-E092-4EFE-8407-08877B153422@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Recent install of Win2000 set tiny 2 GB "C" drive & I cannot do updates &
download programs. It setup D: drive as 126 GB. (Both are NTFS).

How can I greatly enlarge the "C" drive recognized capacity?

Do I need partitions?

How can I use all of the 200 GB SeaGate hard drive?

Thank you, Jim




.

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