External 200Gb USB drive - can I use just 1 partition?

[john]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

I have a 200Gb Maxtor HD being used as an external drive connected via
USB and am currently using it with just a single partition of 200Gb and
seems to be working fine. My OS is WinXP Pro SP1.

I have also connected it via USB to a laptop running Win98 and that also
seems to work fine.

Reading other messages though seems to suggest that I should be having
problems and that I should be using a partition size less than 128Gb.
Can anyone clear up the confusion? And just to repeat this is an
EXTERNAL drive because I know that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance.

 

[peter]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

SP1 in WinXP helped avoiding 128GB limit issue.
It does not matter if it is external, but it does matter if that is a second
or the only disk in the system.
For second (or n-th) disk it is just fine. I would be reluctant to have a
single disk system partitioned that way. Why? Because system maintenance and
recovery are more complicated when you have OS, applications and data on the
same partition.

"John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message
news:156te0pfhr6n7khu010iiohaef75gnnjf0@4ax.com...
> I have a 200Gb Maxtor HD being used as an external drive connected via
> USB and am currently using it with just a single partition of 200Gb and
> seems to be working fine. My OS is WinXP Pro SP1.
>
> I have also connected it via USB to a laptop running Win98 and that also
> seems to work fine.
>
> Reading other messages though seems to suggest that I should be having
> problems and that I should be using a partition size less than 128Gb.
> Can anyone clear up the confusion? And just to repeat this is an
> EXTERNAL drive because I know that makes a difference.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>

 

[john]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 09:36:16 -0400, "Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca>
wrote:

>SP1 in WinXP helped avoiding 128GB limit issue.
>It does not matter if it is external, but it does matter if that is a second
>or the only disk in the system.
>For second (or n-th) disk it is just fine. I would be reluctant to have a
>single disk system partitioned that way. Why? Because system maintenance and
>recovery are more complicated when you have OS, applications and data on the
>same partition.



Thanks for your message, Peter. It is a second drive, my main drive is
a 120Gb Maxtor partitioned into 4 x 30Gb.

What about its use on the Win98 laptop though? At the moment it seems
to be working fine in that it appears as a 200Gb drive and I appear to
be able to access any data on it. At present I only have about 60Gb of
data on there, am I likely to run into problems when I get beyond the
128 or 137 Gb mark ?






>"John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message
>news:156te0pfhr6n7khu010iiohaef75gnnjf0@4ax.com...
>> I have a 200Gb Maxtor HD being used as an external drive connected via
>> USB and am currently using it with just a single partition of 200Gb and
>> seems to be working fine. My OS is WinXP Pro SP1.
>>
>> I have also connected it via USB to a laptop running Win98 and that also
>> seems to work fine.
>>
>> Reading other messages though seems to suggest that I should be having
>> problems and that I should be using a partition size less than 128Gb.
>> Can anyone clear up the confusion? And just to repeat this is an
>> EXTERNAL drive because I know that makes a difference.
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>>
>>
>

 

[peter]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

I'm not sure, I have never used 200GB disk with Win98. But you can make a
test with a large dummy files (4GB) to fill it up.
I think most of the problems are related to FDISK and
partitioning/formatting issues under Win98.

"John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message
news:tb9te0dcln51hoi7t6pmtn7avu77t0nujs@4ax.com...
>
>
> On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 09:36:16 -0400, "Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >SP1 in WinXP helped avoiding 128GB limit issue.
> >It does not matter if it is external, but it does matter if that is a
second
> >or the only disk in the system.
> >For second (or n-th) disk it is just fine. I would be reluctant to have a
> >single disk system partitioned that way. Why? Because system maintenance
and
> >recovery are more complicated when you have OS, applications and data on
the
> >same partition.
>
>
>
> Thanks for your message, Peter. It is a second drive, my main drive is
> a 120Gb Maxtor partitioned into 4 x 30Gb.
>
> What about its use on the Win98 laptop though? At the moment it seems
> to be working fine in that it appears as a 200Gb drive and I appear to
> be able to access any data on it. At present I only have about 60Gb of
> data on there, am I likely to run into problems when I get beyond the
> 128 or 137 Gb mark ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >"John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message
> >news:156te0pfhr6n7khu010iiohaef75gnnjf0@4ax.com...
> >> I have a 200Gb Maxtor HD being used as an external drive connected via
> >> USB and am currently using it with just a single partition of 200Gb and
> >> seems to be working fine. My OS is WinXP Pro SP1.
> >>
> >> I have also connected it via USB to a laptop running Win98 and that
also
> >> seems to work fine.
> >>
> >> Reading other messages though seems to suggest that I should be having
> >> problems and that I should be using a partition size less than 128Gb.
> >> Can anyone clear up the confusion? And just to repeat this is an
> >> EXTERNAL drive because I know that makes a difference.
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Since it is USB you will not see any limits of the IDE drivers, as they are
not used.

The FAT32 volume is over the official Win98 supported size, but nobody else
has reported problems with it.

"John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message
news:tb9te0dcln51hoi7t6pmtn7avu77t0nujs@4ax.com...
>
> What about its use on the Win98 laptop though? At the moment it seems
> to be working fine in that it appears as a 200Gb drive and I appear to
> be able to access any data on it. At present I only have about 60Gb of
> data on there, am I likely to run into problems when I get beyond the
> 128 or 137 Gb mark ?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 11:06:43 -0400, "Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca>
wrote:

>I'm not sure, I have never used 200GB disk with Win98. But you can make a
>test with a large dummy files (4GB) to fill it up.
>I think most of the problems are related to FDISK and
>partitioning/formatting issues under Win98.

Just one thing: I thought 98 can't access NTFS formatted drives and
FAT32 wouldn't be possible on such beast due to its limitation.

Maybe it's a nature of external hard drive that gets around the format
issue?
--
To reply, replace digi.mon with tds.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:_cxHc.48092$JG5.1247175@news20.bellglobal.com
> SP1 in WinXP helped avoiding 128GB limit issue.

There is no 128GB limit issue with external drives except for serial ATA.
At least none that can be helped by driver updates in service packs.
The problem will be further up in the Firewire- or USB to IDE bridge.

> It does not matter if it is external,

Yes it does.

> but it does matter if that is a second or the only disk in the system.

Yes, but for other reasons.

> For second (or n-th) disk it is just fine. I would be reluctant to have a
> single disk system partitioned that way. Why? Because system maintenance
> and recovery are more complicated when you have OS, applications and
> data on the same partition.
>
> "John" <john@spamfree.com> wrote in message news:156te0pfhr6n7khu010iiohaef75gnnjf0@4ax.com...
> > I have a 200Gb Maxtor HD being used as an external drive connected via
> > USB and am currently using it with just a single partition of 200Gb and
> > seems to be working fine. My OS is WinXP Pro SP1.
> >
> > I have also connected it via USB to a laptop running Win98 and that also
> > seems to work fine.
> >
> > Reading other messages though seems to suggest that I should be having
> > problems and that I should be using a partition size less than 128Gb.
> > Can anyone clear up the confusion? And just to repeat this is an
> > EXTERNAL drive because I know that makes a difference.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.