Windows NT2000 Supports Large Hard Drives


Windows 2000 system partition can be formatted as FAT file system ( max 2GB),
FAT32 file system ( max 32 GB) or NTFS file system ( max 2 terabytes) before
copying the Setup files. Finally, support for large drives. Windows 2000
supports large system partitions because it has the ability to use BIOS INT-13
extensions to boot the operating system on partitions with more than 1,024
cylinders, or 7.8 GB in size. After Windows W2K Setup copies files, it restarts
the computer to continue with GUI-mode Setup.

There can be problems. Windows 2000 setup does not verify that BIOS INT-13
extensions are enabled or available for use. If they are not, upon reboot, you
will get the following error message after POST:

       A disk read error occurred.
Press Crtl+Alt+Del to restart.

A similar problem occurs with SCSI controllers when drive translation is
disabled and INT-13 extensions are disabled in the SCSI BIOS.

In either case, with these features disabled, the drive’s geometry is native
and the drive’s partition table will contain Cylinder, Head, and Sector (CHS)
values which cannot be described within the partition table’s upper limit of
1,023 cylinders. INT-13 extensions must be used to boot from the partition.

Check for updates Q240672

Related articles:

Setup Cannot Continue After Reformatting Dynamic System/Boot Partition
Q246119
Details how to use
Dskprobe.exe to edit the Partition Table volume data to fix untranslated offsets
(int13 translation problem)

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