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General discussion

win2k does not

May 6, 2004 5:57PM PDT

win2k does not "read" the whole 250 gb hdd (western digital 8 mb cache 7200 rpm), only 130 gb. The main board(bios updated) read 250 gb, heads cylinders ... etc, but not win2k, or partition magic 7.0 . I've tested an partition magic 8.0 (shareware), but nothing !!!

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Re:win2k does not
May 7, 2004 3:16AM PDT
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Proceed with extreme care.
May 7, 2004 3:35AM PDT

While http://support.microsoft.com/?id=305098 tells us about when 48-bit LBA support happened in Windows 2000, it doesn't WARN people of an rather nasty problem. I'll write about it and hope it becomes clear to you.

Even if you enable the 48-LBA support, a small hiccup in Windows 2000 and maybe a reinstall of said OS (or XP!) can result in the over 137GB drive contents vanishing. This has happenned numberous times much to the dismay and shock of the owners of such drives.

To workaround such an issue, the best course of action may be to have an OS that supports said drive without a patch. For XP that would be the XP SP1 CD that is now available.

For Windows 2000, Microsoft should be ashamed that such is not available. Microsoft's continuing stance is they are not responsible for people's hard drive content. Its your problem if you didn't backup - Microsoft...

To work around the lack of a proper Windows 2000 CD, you have to research how to crate a SLIPSTREAM WINDOWS 2000 CD with integrated SP4. Sadly, the process is rather complicated and I have to leave that information to where you find it on the internet.

Bob