Member Avatar for gobin445

I'm trying to install NT on IBM Thinkpad 600E with a 60 gb hd for a friend. I keep getting message saying " setup cannot format the partion. C: New (Unformatted) 57217 MB on 8063 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus ) on atapi because it is too large". When I go back to Nt Workstation setup to create partion unable to do it. No floppy, only cd drive. Please any help would be appreciated. Thank U.

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reported the classic "setup cannot format the partition … because it is too large" error when trying to install an older NT build onto a 60 GB ThinkPad drive. and have already pointed toward setup/size limits and official Microsoft notes; the practical aim is to make the disk look like something the NT text‑mode installer can handle.

A reliable no‑floppy route is to boot a partition manager from CD (for example, GParted Live). Use the live CD to initialize the disk with an MBR (msdos) partition table, create a primary system partition of modest size, mark it active, and preformat it. After that, run the NT setup and install to that primary partition. GParted Live: https://gparted.org/livecd.php

If creating a CD is not an option, removing the laptop drive and attaching it to another PC (IDE cable or USB‑to‑IDE adapter/external enclosure) lets a newer OS or partition tool prepare the drive, then return it to the ThinkPad for installation. That also makes it easy to create additional data partitions and to back up any existing data.

Additional troubleshooting tips: ensure the ThinkPad BIOS is updated (older BIOSes can report drive geometry in ways older installers cannot handle), use an MBR partition table (NT installers do not support GPT), and make the OS partition primary and active before starting setup. Keep a backup of any data before repartitioning.

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Member Avatar for gerbil

You may check this for yourself, but I think the maximum size that windows setup will allow for a FAT32 partition is 32GB. Either use the NTFS system, or make a sensible size for the windows partition of about 8 -10GB, and a second, third partition for data. OR you could format it with a third party software.... windows setup will then cope with it even if larger than 32GB..

Member Avatar for DaveB

It's only 4Gb. :(

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