Is there a partition size limit for Vista?

wither 3 · Nov 24, 2013

I just bought a new 2 TB hard drive and when I try to install Vista, I get an message that the Windows Setup could not reinitialize the deployment engine. This occurs when it starts installing the actual OS. I'm not referring to the Windows is installing files which occurs before I select the language, etc.

I have selected Format and let it do that before going to the screen for the installation. I noticed that the New button which is for creating a new partition is greyed out. I don't know what happens if I select the displayed partition and then select delete. I don't want to screw up the drive.

The BIOS recognizes the drive and it's size.

Anybody know the answer to this one?

Also, if I reinstall Vista on a drive which is already partitioned, does the installation affect the other partitions? I remember doing this before and Vista creates an Old Windows folder but can't remember if the other partitions are affected.

ilikefree · Nov 24, 2013

If it helps I only have one partition on my computer and the operating system and all my files are on the same drive
only 120gig though
I have external drives for more files

wither 3 · Nov 24, 2013

Thanks for your reply ilikefree. I guess the other volunteers are spending time in the Win 7 and Win 8 forums.

It turns out that I don't think that a partition greater than 1 Tb is supported by Vista. I ended up using the Ultimate Boot CD (which was suggested in response to one of my other threads) to reduce the entire 2 Tb to five partitions less than 500 Gb each and formatted them to NTFS. Now, Vista has installed and it is installing 110 updates. I haven't even installed SP1 and 2 yet. Believe me, I'm leaving a lot of details about failures in this process. When I purchased a 1 Tb hard drive, Vista installed without me having to partition it.

Thank you again.

townsbg · Nov 25, 2013

I've never tried it though but it should be as long as you are using ntfs or exfat instead of Fat32 or any other 32-bit file system. The only thing I can think of is if you are trying to use the old MBR partition instead of GPT which only has a max partition size of 2 tb since it is 32-bit. Even then though with a 2 tb drive not all of it is recognized so I'm not sure. Something to look into though. Master boot record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patonb · Nov 26, 2013

Siince it's pre SP1, I think yes.

I believe SP1 does have a limit, where as 2 recognizes more.

Save your self work and download the vanilla image from the forum.

wither 3 · Nov 26, 2013

I finally got SP2 and all of the updates installed yesterday.

I didn't look for my other thread but, in there I mentioned how I got to the point of buying a new drive. I did that because the Master and Slave drives I used to have installed, have gotten to the point where they won't boot. I was able to retrieve my personal files from that Master drive (I put Vista on the new drive to sleep and hooked up the old Master and then came out of sleep mode).

I can reinstall Vista on the old Master but I would really rather recover it since I don't want to spend two days installing software. I had made a image of the C: drive on that drive with Macrium Reflect and saved it to the old slave drive (before the slave drive failed to boot). I'm going to try to get that image off of the old slave drive in about an hour. I need to figure out how to restore it to the old Master drive (I've never done a restore with Macrium).

Note that I don't have a UEFI/GPT system.

ilikefree · Nov 26, 2013

Restore with Macrium is easy you need a macrium boot disc and the bios changed to boot from cd/dvd
You can make the boot disc from within macrium

wither 3 · Nov 26, 2013

There's three problems here.

First, the master partition table is messed up. I tried to use the UBCD disk and G-partition but it won't recognize the partitions.

Second, I'm unable to see the imagine file when I run my new drive and the old drive. What I'll have to do is boot the new drive while the old drive is connected. Checkdisk will run forever on the old drive but I'll be able to see the files on the old drive that way.

Third, with the master partition file screwed up, I'm not sure how Macrium will be able to transfer the image.

Right now, I've decided to install necessary software on the new drive but am hoping not having to install it all.

wither 3 · Dec 7, 2013

I bit the bullet and decided to make my new drive the Master drive so I spent a couple of days installing software.

Earlier on, I said that, after using the Ultimate Boot CD to create 5 partitions, everything was okay. However, it turns out that, even though Computer Management recognizes all five partitions, I have to format the E and F partitions (working right now) and the fifth one is just shown as unallocated (not a big deal).

NoelDP · Dec 7, 2013

A normal MBR can only deal with up to 4 Primary partitions on each physical disk - if you need more Primary partitions, you'll have to use an Extended MBR (which may be proprietary, and isn't strictly supported by Windows, but does work).
Better would be to use Logical Drives in an Extended Partition, if you aren't booting to those partitions.

wither 3 · Dec 7, 2013

Hi NoelDP. Thanks for the information. I thought I saw somewhere that 5 partitions was the limit. What I could do is just take the unallocated space and make it part of the fourth partition. I started formatting the E partition, which is 439 Gb around noon today. At the rate it was going, I thought it would be done in an hour. 3 1/2 hours later it's only 82% done.

NoelDP · Dec 7, 2013

It's usually only necessary to do a quick format - but 3.5 hrs sounds to me to be too long even for a full deep format on 500GB.?

wither 3 · Dec 7, 2013

Well, I chose the format option from computer management. There was no other choice. After 4 1/2 hours, it said it was 99% complete and then it came up with the message that it "failed to complete the operation". Just makes me mad. The first two partitions are 439 Gb which totals 878 Gb. The next partition is 439 Gb also but it spans the 1 Tb level. I'm just wondering if that's an issue with Vista or the fact that I don't have a UEFI system.

townsbg · Dec 8, 2013

Did you see my link?

NoelDP · Dec 8, 2013

Your mentioned using UBCD to create the partitions - why not use the Vista install disk? Which release of XP did you base the UBCD on? - RTM had notorious problems creating partitions larger than 32GB in certain circumstances (although from memory that was with FAT32 rather than NTFS) I use SP3 for my UBCD base.

wither 3 · Dec 8, 2013

Townsbg- yes I saw your link to Wiki but it does't really tell me anything. As I've said before, I don't have UEFI/GPT.

NoelDP- if I remember correctly, the Vista installation disk had the format option greyed out. That's why I used the UBCD. I don't remember anything about XP. I just went to the linked website and downloaded it. In Computer Management, the C: and D: are good volumes but the E: and F: are shown as RAW and the last space is shown as unallocated. I can't figure out why it took all that time to format in NTFS and at the very last moment said it failed.

I'm still hung up on this 1 Tb issue. The other drive I have is a 1 Tb drive. I was able to install Vista on it without issue (no formatting) and then change it so that it had 3 partitions.

NoelDP · Dec 8, 2013

It may be that the drive has a hardware problem - run the manufacturer's test utility over it and see what it has to say.

wither 3 · Dec 8, 2013

I don't know what happened to my response. The only useful utility I saw at Western Digital was a Advanced Formatting utility. However, when I answered all the questions it asked at the website, it said I didn't need to run it.

I installed EaseUS Partition Master. I selected the E: partition and Format Partition. Gave it all the information. Checked Apply and ran it. While it was running Windows said I needed to format it but I didn't run that. When done, PM reported that it wasn't formatted. Tried this with the F: drive and encountered the same problem.

I then removed the E: and F: partitions. I created a 100 Gb partition which made the total for C:, D: and E: just slightly less than 1 Tb. Did the same thing as above and it worked like a charm.

Then tried to create a new F: partition. Couldn't do it. For some reason, Windows won't allow greater than 1 Tb on this system.

NoelDP · Dec 8, 2013

Check for a BIOS update for the motherboard.
While the BIOS may recognise the disk size, it may not be fully compatible with the larger size without an update - Vista certainly should be.

NoelDP · Dec 8, 2013

What you need is the Data Lifeguard utility
Here's the PDF file about it - http://support.wdc.com/download/notes/WinDLG_v1_24_Release_Notes.pdf?r=285
Go to the WD site here WD Support / Downloads / SATA & SAS and select your drive, then download the utility (Windows version will do) and install it.

Is there a partition size limit for Vista?

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