Trying to format a Samsung 120 GB IDE hard drive FAT32. Want one partition of 120GB. All utilities, even Swissknife will only format to 31.4 GB leaving the other 90 GB unformatted. How format beyond the famous 32 GB barrier???
Drive must be formatted FAT32 since it will then be moved to a Linux system.
How does the BIOS see the disk?
Is it in LBA mode, or autodetect?
pretty sure it was autodectect. Just mounted drive as 32 GB and installed Windows on it. Drives larger than 32 GB should be outlawed anyway and their owners excommunicated.
slave it to a working xp computer and format it in xp's diskmanager
seemed like a good idea & I tried that w/ a WinXP-Home edition. However this also could not see beyond 32GB. Eventually I formatted it as 32 GB and just left it as that. I have no idea why I lost the full 120 GB but I've given up playing with it.
I wish one could edit these posts. My very limited motherboard does not apparently have LBA or other modes: it only has autodetect.
you can only edit up to 30 mins after posting
really you aught to get a more modern motherboard
seemed like a good idea & I tried that w/ a WinXP-Home edition. However this also could not see beyond 32GB. Eventually I formatted it as 32 GB and just left it as that. I have no idea why I lost the full 120 GB but I've given up playing with it.
you can partition it into 4x 32 gb partitions and have use of the whole drive
I would've format it on a newer PC running Linux. Besides, are you sure that your computer can see a partition larger than 32 GB?
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