Adding 2nd Hard Drive to existing WIN2K install.

Damon0306

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Jan 22, 2001
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OK just built this system. This was my first experience building a machine with more then ONE HARD DRIVE.

System SPECS:

ABIT SH6, PIII-850, 512MB RAM
Viper 770, TNT-2, ULTRA (waiting for G-FORCE 3)
Adaptec 29160 Ultra 160 SCSI, Cheetah X-15 18.4G
Plextor UltraPlexWIDE 40X, Plextor 12x4x32 CDRW
Sound Blaster Live VALUE
Linksys Eithernet Card

Clean install of Windows 2000, everthing is good. Now I was told to add a second hard drive to a existing Win2K setup, that you have to use the Disk Manager, under the Administrative Tools.

So after fooling with the program for a bit, I fully understood how it worked.

I hooked up my Maxtor Diamond Max 7200rpm 40G drive, motherboard see's the drive fine and as ATA-100. I install the Intel ATA-100 controller drivers from the ABIT SH6 CD-ROM (i815 chipset motherboard).

That goes fine. Now I go to control panel, go to Administrative Tools, go to Computer Management.

I create volume, then try to format it using the FAT32 file system, (the main CHEETAH SCSI boot drive is also FAT32)

Won't let me format it. If I do normal format it goes all the way up to 99% then when it hits 100% it says "Volume to LARGE" and it fails. If I do quick format it says the same thing.

So I delete the volume, start all over, this time formatting it with the NTFS file system, and it works fine, either with a quick format or normal format.

QUESTION: Why the HECK can't I use the FAT32 FILE SYSTEM on the Maxtor 40G drive?!?!?! Why do I have to use the NTFS file system? I even tried formating the Maxtor and only using 10G of space, just to see if infact that maybe 40G was to large, and I still get the same error message "volume to large" when format is done.

QUESTION :

Are there any dis-advantages of using the NTFS file system on the 2nd drive? I only use it to store MP3's and don't install programs to the drive. Is it true that most programs won't run on a NTFS file system? What if I were to install the Half-Life game, to the NEW drive, would the installation STOP right away because of the NTFS file system?

QUESTION: Do you think the MAXTOR 40G drive has some sort of Compatibility issue with the Windows 2000 Disk Management program, and that is why I can't format the drive with FAT32, but it works FINE with NTFS?

Any info would be great! Calling ALL WINDOWS 2K GURU'S!!

BTW the only way I can format the new Maxtor Drive using FAT32 is if I use FDISK in DOS. But when I do that it changes the Maxtor Drive letter to C and changes the CHEETAH to D, and then my system doesnt boot, and yes I have it set in the BIOS for SCSI for the ONLY device to boot from.
 

BrainStorm

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Dec 31, 2007
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I answered you on another post, with FAT32 you can't go over 32GB partitions. There is no disadvantages using NTFS overs FAT32 on such huge partitions, maybe some advantages in term of speed.

It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick!
 

Lars_Coleman

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Feb 9, 2001
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Maxtor Drives are in fact on the Windows2000 Compatibility list. BrainStorm is right with the 32gig limitation but it doesn't make any sinse that you still get it at a 10gig partition ... are you sure? It is obviously not a Hardware problem cause it will take a NTFS filesystem ... the hard drive doesn't care what filesystem is on it ....

Hope it all works out! *:O)

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