On 14 Mar 2002, at 16:52, Thomas P. Feltman wrote:

> I would like to know how to format my har drive with NT4.0.  I
> have done an install but didnt know that NT only did up to 2 gigs.
>   I have a 30 gig hard drive and would like to use all of the
> drive.  I have the NT CD as well as the DELL systems CD that came
> with this computer.  Any help will be greatly needed and
> appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Thomas P. Feltman

  2GB is the normal limit for a FAT16 partition.  NT can handle FAT16
partitions up to 4GB, but none of the Windows 9x/ME series support
this.
  FAT32, of course, allows for much larger partitions, but NT doesn't
support that without third-party help.
  The preferred format for a 30GB partition under NT is NTFS.

  What you may have run into is that if you use the NT install to
format your drive for NTFS, it does it by creating a FAT16 partition
(maximum of 4GB, see above...) and then converts it to NTFS.

  There's a system tool in NT called either "Disk Manager" or "Drive
Manager" (I've been using 2000 long enough that I've forgotten
exactly which), which will let you partition and format the remaining
space on your drive.  Unlike the install code, it can format NTFS
directly, so 30GB is no problem.
  If you formatted C: using NTFS, you can tell DM to make this
additional space an "extension" to the original.  On some level, they
will still be two partitions, but you will see them as one big volume
"C:".  I don't necessarily recommend this, but I've seen it work.

  A second option is to use a third-party package such as Partition
Magic to "grow" the C: NTFS partition to occupy the whole drive.  I
believe PM added NTFS support in version 5, and I see version 7 in
the stores now.  It's a great product, sez I.

  A third option that you may be able to arrange is to install NT
temporarily to some other drive (I have a couple of spare 2GB drives
around for just such uses), use DM to format your 30GB drive as one
big NTFS partition, and then re-do your install to the 30GB drive,
this time to the existing partition rather than using the install to
format the drive.

David Gillett

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