Partition Sizes on NT and 2k

[Nordhaus]

Hello Everyone,

Ok, this is going to sound like a real greenhorn question for a lot of you, but I'm doing my first install of Windows NT (I've been using Win 98 up till now).

When I try to install NT, it seems as though I'm not allowed to install it on a partition size larger than 4 gigs, when using NTFS. Am I doing something wrong, or is this really a limitation of NTFS/NT? (I'm using a 13 gig IDE hard drive)

If it is, is there any way around it so I can make my C: drive/primary drive partition larger?

Also, does Windows 2000 also use NTFS, and does it also have this size limitation as well?

Thanks for your help!

Regards,
Neal

[Nordhaus]

Hello Again,

Well, I have read some other posts on the topic, but now have another question regarding the first setup of NT.

1) Should I only create ONE partition at the beginning of NT 4.0 setup (leaving the rest of the drive unpartitioned), then increase the C: drive/ later using Disk Administrator from the Service pack? Or, should I create all the partitions I need from the get go, and then adjust them later?

2) What are your thoughts on using NTFS vs. FAT32 for Windows NT or Windows 2000. Any benefits or disadvantages (speed/performance/etc.)?

Thanks again for your help!

Regards,
Neal

[HAL9000]

NT is only going to let you set your first partition at 4Gb. Do the install, install the service pack, then use disk admin to partition the rest. What I usually do is make a primary partition roughly 20% of the total drive space and install ONLY NT to that drive. All other programs go on to D.

NTFS is a more "secure" file system that FAT, but NT4 will not read FAT32 partitions.

Win2000 will read FAT32 and can partiton larger than 4Gb drives with NTFS.

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If it ain't broke, you're not pushing hard enough!

[cobra]

Actually the "system" partition in nt 4.0 is supported up to 7.8 GB. Look on MS web site for the info. I just went round and round on this subject at work. We were tryong to image nt machines w/ 10.2 gig drives. How I did it was I created first partition as 7.5 gig and then the rest a "D" drive. Works great. I had to use the setup disks to do the partition then ghosted an image to that partition. If you don't "ghost" drives the previous post is for you.
FYI

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Miami, flee it like a native.

[HAL9000]

Actually cobra... that's a handy piece of info that I didn't know. Thanks http://www.pcmech.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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If it ain't broke, you're not pushing hard enough!

[cobra]

NP

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Miami, flee it like a native.

[smiffy]

Hi,

Speaking from personal experiance I would run just NT on the first partition using FAT. This way if you get a problem that prevents bootup you may be able to fix it from a bootable floppy. An example of this was when I upgraded to NT4 SP4, there was a problem with the SB Live drivers which rendered NT un-bootable. The solution was to delete the driver file , which you could not do if the partition was running NTFS.

Joe

[PC]

Joe, that's not entirely correct. At an account I used to work at, we set up NT with FAT primary partitions but some of the engineers would convert their Primaries to NTFS when they ran out of disk space on their 'C:' drive. If they loaded something that would prevent the system from booting, I would break out a hard drive that I set up for this particular occasion. It had NT installed on it with SP4 and McAfee installed on it (just in case). It took some work to get the drive in and configured to fix the problem but it was better than reformatting the darned thing.