137gb limit, what about in RAID 0 ?

sallyfields

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2003
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Hello all,
I've been reading the forums and some Technet articles about this 137gb limit. Apparently this can be overcome with the installation of sp1 for Windows XP.
I was planning to purchase 2 Seagate SATA drives, either 80 or 160 gig, and configure them as RAID 0 and use this as my system disk. Both of those drives would put me over the 137gb mark if configured as RAID 0.

So I guess my question is: Can I configure RAID 0 with the drives in the BIOS, load Windows XP, and only expect to see more than 137gb after I install sp1 ?

Am I crazy or is this how it will be/work ? Also, I am assumming, because I can't find anything that says so, that this applies to both windows XP Home and Pro. Any ideas ?

Thanks all,

duke

P.S. Not really sallyfields.
 

elzt

Distinguished
May 10, 2002
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19,280
I've been reading the forums and some Technet articles about this 137gb limit. Apparently this can be overcome with the installation of sp1 for Windows XP.
Nope, Windows or file system has nothing to do with the 137GB size limitation. Remember the FAT32 has a 4 terabyte (4,000GB) limit. That means even Win98 can support drives bigger than 137GB!

Instead, it's the ATA100 standard which generally doesn't understand drives over 137GB unless the BIOS is specifically designed to recognize big drives. Fortunately, most newer motherboards have this BIOS which overcome the problem of single drive or RAID 0 array larger than 137GB.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Oh, XP SP1 works FINE with partitions over 137GB, it just doesn't know how to MAKE them! Yes, there is a problem with XP.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I've heard of this problem, where windows settup is unable to make partitions larger than 137GB. I think the only workaround is to use a third party program to either expand a 137GB partition or create a new one.

If you RAID two 100GB drives in level 0, Windows Settup will still see it as a single 200GB drive and probably still try to make a 137GB partition.

Unless someone knows something "newer" than what I've said.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>