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2 TiB limit size in MBR hard drives


Cixert

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On 10/21/2017 at 4:15 PM, rloew said:

Files larger than 4GiB can be handled on a FAT32 Partition with my large File Emulator on 9x and XP.

@rloew
can you add a download link or more information?

Finally, what is the work you have done in this post?
Can any of you put a link to it?
Is an extended MBR for SATA available for XP?
I have read a summary of you but I have also read a discrepancy, so I do not have it clear.
Note that I find it curious that you have done tests with MBR> 2TiB on Windows Seven. Years ago I did the test and it did not read MBR> 2TiB connected by USB. I recently did the same test on Windows 10 and it does read MBR> 2TiB

At this time my data occupy 8 TiB. But at the user level I think I'm weird. Most people lose their data without caring, do thousands of photos and videos without worrying about saving or even they intentionally delete them.
Most people think that the future is a cloud in which to store their data (so I see they do not care much if they get lost).
Hard drives larger than 2 TiB do not fall in price. In recent years it has increased. The demand is only select. So I do not know if there will be a future above 256 TiB.
For my part, I have everything I need saved well, so the size of my data will not increase much.
I will always use Windows 2000 / XP / NT 5 for the rest of my life.
If the users are organized, this may be possible.

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My products are available on my Website.

My TeraByte Plus Package can easily handle up to 384TiB Hard Drives in DOS and Windows 9x, both SATA and USB.

My extended MBR approach is not currently supported in Windows NT, 2000 or XP. I have an experimental hybrid extended MBR/GPT solution for Windows 7 and later when sharing with Windows 9x.

I did not test Windows 7 with untranslated USB Drives, only SATA Drives, so I cannot comment on your observation.
Translated USB Drives (4K Sectors) are supported by Windows XP and later to 16TiB.

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18 hours ago, rloew said:

My products are available on my Website.

My TeraByte Plus Package can easily handle up to 384TiB Hard Drives in DOS and Windows 9x, both SATA and USB.

My extended MBR approach is not currently supported in Windows NT, 2000 or XP. I have an experimental hybrid extended MBR/GPT solution for Windows 7 and later when sharing with Windows 9x.

I did not test Windows 7 with untranslated USB Drives, only SATA Drives, so I cannot comment on your observation.
Translated USB Drives (4K Sectors) are supported by Windows XP and later to 16TiB.

I suppose File Emulator also works on Windows 2000, right?
Windows Seven also did not read MBR disks >2 TiB from SATA.
I suppose that later Service Pack may have fixed this error.

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56 minutes ago, Cixert said:

Windows Seven also did not read MBR disks >2 TiB from SATA.
I suppose that later Service Pack may have fixed this error.

No, if the disk exposes 512 bytes sector the 2 TB limit is due to the 32 bytes field in the MBR (this cannot be fixed), though there is a workaround, using a particular partitoning scheme, to access up to 4 TB on MBR stryle disks on BIOS that works in 7.

Some references:

http://reboot.pro/topic/21788-auugh-i-think-i-screwed-up-easy2boot-on-a-4tb-usb-drive/?p=206968

jaclaz

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/18/2018 at 8:13 PM, jaclaz said:

No, if the disk exposes 512 bytes sector the 2 TB limit is due to the 32 bytes field in the MBR (this cannot be fixed), though there is a workaround, using a particular partitoning scheme, to access up to 4 TB on MBR stryle disks on BIOS that works in 7.

Some references:

http://reboot.pro/topic/21788-auugh-i-think-i-screwed-up-easy2boot-on-a-4tb-usb-drive/?p=206968

jaclaz

I explain it in the first comment of this topic, 16 pages ago.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/176480-2-tib-limit-size-in-mbr-hard-drives/?do=findComment&comment=1135835
I work with 4 TiB & 3 TiB disks with the cluster size 4KiB on Windows 2000 & Windows XP.
The image shows a 4 TiB disk with a single partition on Windows XP. But I have other 4 TiB discs with 8 partitions working correctly on NT 5 (2000 & XP).
However, these same discs are not read by Windows NT 6.1 (commercially Windows Seven).
Linux also reads them since 2010.
They are also read by Windows NT 10
But Windows Seven does not read MBR>2TiB to me , neither by USB nor by SATA, it says Raw disc
 type, does not recognize them.
I say it just for reporting, I will never use systems after NT 5 to work.
So I do not care if it does not work on Windows Seven, although I think it's a frustrating trap.

Edited by Cixert
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Yep :), but  again (like in your first post) you are using improperly the term "cluster", while the issue revolves around the "sector" or "block" size.

Most probably :unsure: you miss (in the Windows 7 that you DO NOT use) this hotfix:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/982018/an-update-that-improves-the-compatibility-of-windows-7-and-windows-ser

which - notwithstanding it says it is only for 512AF disks- should apply also to 4K disks, mainly because it has newer drivers (SATA) and also some changes in the USB stack.

But we will need a confirmation/denial by someone that actually uses Windows 7 AND such large drives.

jaclaz

 

Edited by jaclaz
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  • 1 year later...

MBR USB boot testings:
Some real world testings at a Thinkpad X230.
Given a 3 TB USB hard disk with 512e bytes per sector.

Three partitions: USB_BOOT, USB_2TB, USB_data
USB_BOOT: a primary active FAT32 8 GB
USB_2TB: NTFS 2 TB, within first 2 TiB of the hard disk
USB_data: NTFS, behind 2 TiB 
 
13   80     0  32 33  1023 254 63        2048    16580608        16582656 partition end sector on disk
7    0   1023 254 63  1023 254 63    16582656  4278384632      4294967288 partition end sector on disk
7    0   1023 254 63  1023 254 63  4294967288  1565499400      5860466688 partition end sector on disk
                                                               5860466688  sectors on disk


BIOS mode, grub4dos 
geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80(LBA): C/H/S=267350/255/63 Count/Size=4294967289/512
  Partition num: 0, active, Fileystem type is fat32, partition type 0x0C
  Partition num: 1, Fileystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
  Partition num: 2, Fileystem type is unknown, partition type 0x07

cat --hex (hd0)4294967296+1
correct hexdump, does match the hard disk sector. The BIOS reads up to 2 TiB.

cat --hex (hd0)4294967297+1
zero listed only, dosn't match the hard disk sector
The BIOS fails above 2 TiB.

Bios boot, installation is possible:
Windows 10 files at first partition
Windows 10 \boot and \sources\boot.wim at first partition, \sources\install.wim at second partiton
Windows 10 \boot and \sources\boot.wim at first partition, \sources\install.wim at third partiton: PE reads the whole disk

Windows 10 \boot at first partition, \sources\boot.wim at second partition, \sources\install.wim at third partiton:
\boot\bcd is adjusted to read \sources\boot.wim at the second partition


booting fails: bootmgr message: A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.
Windows 10 \boot at first partition, \sources\boot.wim and \sources\install.wim  at third partiton:
\boot\bcd is adjusted to read \sources\boot.wim at the third partition
Yes, the BIOS dosn't acces the whole disk, hence the bootmgr message.

There are the equal results at UEFI boot. 
Even at UEFI moode, the first 2 TiB can be accessed only.
There is either a UEFI limitation or bootmgfw.efi is limited.
There may be other UEFI results at another hardware.

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On 9/4/2019 at 7:17 PM, cdob said:

There are the equal results at UEFI boot. 
Even at UEFI moode, the first 2 TiB can be accessed only.
There is either a UEFI limitation or bootmgfw.efi is limited.
There may be other UEFI results at another hardware.

I love standards, there are so many of them ... ;)

jaclaz

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  • 4 months later...

Recently a curious fact happened to me on USB disks. After firmware updating the reader Logilink USB 3.0 IDE & SATA, the device has stopped reading USB hard drives larger than 2TB. I had to claim Logilink support send to me the oldversion firmware  AU0028A v.915 for it to work again.
"It seems that someone is upset because we have large hard drives on Windows 2000 and XP"

Edited by Cixert
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  • 2 years later...

I wanted to share this information as I did a search and I didn't see these XP compliant hard drives mentioned anywhere in the XP forum.

The extra-large capacity hard drives which are XP compliant use MBR emulation and work on XP and all Windows operating systems from XP on up through  Windows 10, possibly Windows 11,although I have no confirmation of Windows 11.

I have had the 16 TB external for 6 months and it works fine.
I  divided it into 3 partitions as per my personal preference, though I did try it before dividing it into partitions and it worked fine.

----------------

Large and Extra-Large external hard drives for XP - 3TB up to 16 TB
With newer hard drives supporting larger than 2TB requiring GPT partition, Windows XP users were left behind since XP does not support GPT.
However, XP Compliant models adds support for the MBR partition thus allowing XP users to break the 2TB barrier while maintaining compatibility with all other OS.

https://buslink.com/products/xp-compliant-usb-3-0-external-desktop-hard-drive-for-all-os/

https://buslinkbuy.com/product/usb-3-0-xp-compliant-external-desktop-hard-drive-for-all-os/

-------------

Should there be a better subforum for me to post this information in, please advise accordingly.

I hope this information is interesting and helpful to someone.

Edited by Eclectic
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Very likely there is no "MBR emulation", they simply are "native" 4K sectored disks that expose 4 KB sectors, plainly MBR partitioned or however the actual USB enclosure exposes 4 KB sectors.

This shifts the MBR limit by 8 times (4096/512) so that the maximum accessible area becomes up to around 16 TB.

Such disks won't be bootable (from BIOS) without - maybe - a "special" loader, as most (if not all) MBR loaders assume 512 Bytes sectors.

See also this other thread:

jaclaz

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  • 1 year later...

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