Is there a partition size limit for Vista?

[wither 3]

Thanks NoelDP. I read about the Data Lifeguard but I don't think that's needed.

We must be reading each other's mind. I was out having a beer and cigar this afternoon and also thought about the BIOS. I'll check on it but I think I have the latest installed. These large hard drives weren't around 6 years ago when I bought this system.

 

[wither 3]

It turns out that there are two BIOS updates since the last one I did (they're both four years old). I'm working with EVGA on making sure that I have the correct one for my mobo. I've also asked them if the update may fix the formatting issue but haven't gotten a response yet.

 

[wither 3]

I flashed the BIOS with the latest update and Vista still doesn't recognize the second Tb. It's strange because XP is supposed to allow up to 2 Tb. Maybe it has to be FAT 32.

 

[NoelDP]

Fat32 cannot recognise large drives - NTFS on the other hand can go to the EB level at least in theory.
The problem is not with the OS, but the hardware.

 

[wither 3]

Nobody that I know of with a hard drive greater than 1 Tb has chimed in here. Perhaps you have one that you're using with Vista. I guess I'll have to ask Western Digital about it.

 

[townsbg]

According to wikipedia fat32 could handle 2 tb and even 16 tb with a 4k cluster size. Personally on my desktop I didn't have Vista on anything larger than an 80gb partition on a 250 gb drive. I wonder if maybe something is wrong with your drive. Have you tried windows 7?

 

[wither 3]

I accidently stumbled across this thread-

http://www.vistax64.com/sbs-server/270998-priv1-edb-maximum-size.html

It seems to imply a 2 Tb limit.

I don't understand why I can partition it but Windows goes through the motions of formatting it, only to fail. I used NTSF, 4K.

I was trying to check the sector size in the properties of the c: drive but it doesn't show it. I see there's something called Disk Quota and it's disabled. I'm wondering if I should enable it.

I just got off the phone with Western Digital. They talked with Microsoft and said that I have to reformat the entire drive to make all the space available. They're providing the details but I probably won't do this immediately since everything is working without the extra Tb. I would have to image the working partitions and then restore the images so I don't have to spend another 3 days reinstalling everything.