videobruce 0 Posted April 30, 2003 I had another thread that was tied into this question, but at the time I thought it was another issue. The drive was NTFS and I changed it back to FAT32. Now I'm running into the same problem, but the drive was Fat32 already. I have always used Fdisk to partition my hard drives. I deleted the partition, create a primary and a extended and format them within Windows setup. The drives were/are 20GB. I'm confortable with it and at this basic level it seems to work fine. I only create 2 partitions, nothing fancy. After doing so, I use a bootable CD with 2k and sp3 slipstreamed to install the O/S. I don't know if this is the reason or something else, but the last two times I did this, when I enter the Windows setup there is some unallocated space on the primary partition that Fdisk didn't show. This shows up in Partition Magic also along with the Windows setup. The first time it was 7.8 MB, not a big deal. The 2nd time it is 180 MB, a BIG deal! Others mentioned that Windows needs space for the setup files (that get deleted after setup), but isn't that within the partition wher the O/S gets loaded? This unallocated space isn't formatted so it can't be used, right? I don't know what I'm doing wrong unless it is some quirk with this bootable CD. BTW, I'm using FAT32 Share this post Link to post
Tomay 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Especially on larger HDD's >8GB windows 2000,XP puts some free space. I don't know if the os needs it, but I doubt it. I use PM and resize the partition. It doesn't matter if FAT or NTFS. Even on my 540Mb drive it leaves some space when formating from windows. It could be a bug or just a precaution. Who knows Share this post Link to post
videobruce 0 Posted April 30, 2003 There is a problem with the drive. I used the erase utility to wipe the drive which gave me another error in the last 10% of the drive. Up to that point there were no bad sectors. I used the Windows setup to partition and format the drive and that 8MB space did show. I tried to partition that, but Windows barked at me stating it was needed for setup or something like that. I guess because the drive has a problem was where that 180MB chunk came from. I just don't know why I didn't see this before. Share this post Link to post
Christianb 8 Posted April 30, 2003 Win2K will leave about 8MB at the end if you have one or more NTFS partitions. The other problem is Win2K has a formatting limitation on FAt32 I don't think it'll format a partition any larger than 80GB. You should just download Ranish partition Manager. Good Luck, Christian Blackburn Share this post Link to post
mezron 0 Posted May 1, 2003 Quote: I used the Windows setup to partition and format the drive and that 8MB space did show. I tried to partition that, but Windows barked at me stating it was needed for setup or something like that. That 8MB left over is put there intentionally by the Windows installer. If you ever decide to convert your drive to a dynamic disk Windows will need that space during the conversion process. Most people won't use it on thier home system, but if you think you'll ever want to go the dynamic disk route don't remove that free space. One way I've found to get around that since I don't do the dynamic disk thing is boot the system with a Win98 boot disk. Go into the fdisk utility and delete all the partitions, then create a primary partition and set it active... blah blah anyway reboot but don't format yet. Boot off the Win2000 disk and start the setup when it gets to the point where it wants you to choose the destination drive pick the unformatted one then continue. It'll say it needs to format the drive so choose the format (NTFS or FAT32) and continue on. This should format your drive using it's full capacity (no 8MB slack left over). It's worked for me hopefully it will for you too Jim Share this post Link to post
videobruce 0 Posted May 1, 2003 I did use Fdisk to delete and recreate 2 partitions and used the Windows setup to format, but that 8MB was still there. When you say "pick the unformatted one" I assume you mean the one you made active, since all partitions are unformatted after using Fdisk. Share this post Link to post
mezron 0 Posted May 2, 2003 Quote: I did use Fdisk to delete and recreate 2 partitions and used the Windows setup to format, but that 8MB was still there. When you say "pick the unformatted one" I assume you mean the one you made active, since all partitions are unformatted after using Fdisk. I haven't tried it with more than one partition so I don't know what'll happen there. I just did it again on a test system the way I described and it worked for me. One thing though, you have to do it in the exact sequence I described. When you get to the point in the install where you choose the partition to install to just select the one you want and then continue. The next screen will tell you that setup needs to format, etc... If you choose the create a partition first and then select it to install to you'll be left with 8MB left over. One thing I just discovered. I was mistaken about not being able to convert to dynamic disk if you remove the 8MB slack. I could swear I read that http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=225822 it was needed to be able to convert to a dynamic drive, but I just converted mine without problem. YMMV Jim Share this post Link to post
