FDISK and FORMAT large HDDs

[JohnHolland]

Hi All,

I'm new here at this forum, so maybe the answer on my question is already here on this forum.

I have a computer with OS WIN98SE and a HDD of 6GB as primary partition. My MoBo is NOT

supporting 48bit LBA and supports only HDD <33GB.

I now have installed a 500GB PATA HDD and connected it to a UltraPCI card. Sofar everything

seems OK and my computer recognozes the full 500GB.

I want to partition and format my new disk with the FDISK and FORMAT that came with WIN98SE,

but I am not sure wether these programs support 48bit LBA. As far as I understand these programs

will work on a 48bit LBA disk but do not the display the sizes correctly. Will they partition and format

my disk properly, so my data will not be damaged beyond the 137GB barrier?

I also have a copy of PowerQuest PartitionMagic v8 installed on my computer. Do you know if

PartitionMagic will support 48bit LBA.

I am aware that the Programs SCANDISK and DEFRAG will not support 48bit LBA, so I have disabled

them.

Thanks for your help!

[LoneCrusader]

Welcome to MSFN

Have a look at dencorso's thread on large hard drives.

[JohnHolland]

Hi LoneCrusader,

Thank you for your welcome and also for your hint

to read the thread of Dencorso.

I will read his thread and also the threads which are

reffered to in his thread and hope to find what I am

looking for.

Thanks again.

John

[LoneCrusader]

No problem. Good luck!

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

Have the limits for the largest volume been posted that win-98 (or DOS-98) fdisk.exe and format.com can work with? Is it 512 gb for both of them?

[Fredledingue]

The limit for DOS fdisk is 1 or 2 Tb.

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

The limit for DOS fdisk is 1 or 2 Tb.

So it's been absolutely proven that fdisk.exe (5/18/2000) can correctly partition hard drives of at least 1 Tb in size, regardless of the partition configuration chosen by the user?

And after partitioning a 1 Tb drive with fdisk, what comes next to actually format the drive? Was format.com (4/23/1999) or (11/7/2006) used to complete the test?

[Fredledingue]

I'm not sure about the limitations of these softwares but I remember that for their DOS versions, they are pretty high.

You should ask MDGx about that. He knows better than me.

[dencorso]

The limit for DOS fdisk is 1 or 2 Tb.

So it's been absolutely proven that fdisk.exe (5/18/2000) can correctly partition hard drives of at least 1 Tb in size, regardless of the partition configuration chosen by the user?

And after partitioning a 1 Tb drive with fdisk, what comes next to actually format the drive? Was format.com (4/23/1999) or (11/7/2006) used to complete the test?

No, it has not been absolutely proven that the limit is above 512 GiB. In fact, it seems to be under 1 TiB. You should peruse the threads ponted to in my > 137 GB thread linked to the right of my signature to see what is currently known (especially the thread (g), by Marius '95). The Ranish Partition Manager, however, can both partition and format a 1 TiB HDD.

[sp193]

But the normal Microsoft FDISK (That can display disk sizes > 64GB properly) cannot display the sizes of my 200GB Hitachi HDD properly (The values "warp" around during partition creation, but a large partition that was already created has it's capacity properly displayed).

Plus when there is space left (But above the "warped" value it has), it will keep saying "There is no space left on the disk". This is true even if you use percentage to create a partition.

[dencorso]

See: KB280737.

Then, forget format and fdisk, and use instead The Ranish Partition Manager.

[MDGx]

You might find the answers you're looking for here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125836&st=1

That post points to other 2 MSFN threads, which are:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=113142&st=36

and respectively:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=113142&st=41

HTH

[Fredledingue]

sp193:

This is a minor cosmetic bug and can be ignored.

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

You might find the answers you're looking for here: (...)

Yes, I'm aware of those threads, and I did know that fdisk and format work on drives up to 500 gb in size. But I still don't see any posts confirming the functionality (or non-functionality) of fdisk and format on drives larger than 500 gb.

[dencorso]

About FORMAT:

I just created a RAID 0 logical drive using HPT372 and 2 WD5000AAJB. I have 1TB of free space and no way to format it!

I just created a FAT32 partition with Ranish Partition Manager, saved it and rebooted. I was planning to format it form Windows, (Rightclick-Format...) but there is a problem. Windows tries to format it as a 98GB partition. FORMAT.COM - same problem. I could format it with Ranish Partition Manager, but it creates 16KB clusters. 16KB clusters on a 1TB partition means a VERY big FAT.

[...]

Fixed FORMAT.COM

FreeDOS FORMAT.EXE

[...]

[...]

About my 1TB partition and Win98:

- Format - impossible in DOS/Win98

[...]

About FDISK:

[...]

read Q263044, Petr's thread on Format and Fdisk, and Q280737, in this order.

[...]

I think that's all the relevant info existing throughout MSFN. If you need/want a more precise answer, you should get Maximus-Decim's BHDD31.ZIP (a. k. a. BHDD31e, direct download) and perform the testing yourself (and report it here), just like I did for SCANDSKW and NDD32, and Marius '95 did for SCANDISK and NDD (DOS version).

Sorry I cannot be of more help!