W2K Guest only recognizes 128GB of virtual HD

paul41s · Post by **paul41s** » 26. Jan 2009, 03:26

Running VB 2.1.2 on WinXP SP2.
Created a virtual HD (4GB) and installed W2K with SP4.
Created a dynamically expanding virtual HD with max size of 225GB and attached to VM as slave HD on primary IDE channel.
Boot W2K VM and go into Manage - Disk Management. It only recognizes 128GB of second virtual HD.

Is this a limitation of VB with an IDE virtual HD?
Or is this a W2K issue?
Or a driver issue?

arakula · Post by **arakula** » 26. Jan 2009, 13:47

paul41s · Post by **paul41s** » 26. Jan 2009, 16:00

So why is it that I can have an IDE HD larger than 128GB in a physical system with W2K, but not in a VM?

Post by **vbox4me2** » 26. Jan 2009, 17:21

There is a regfile for w2k to go beyond 128, can't find it now, but maybe it has a specific entry for a harddisk and it might need another one for a different HD.
Or try gparted CD to expand the partition if you see unused space.

Found it again:
http://www.datarecovery.com.sg/data_rec ... indows.htm

paul41s · Post by **paul41s** » 26. Jan 2009, 18:58

Thanks for the link. I'd forgotten about the whole extended LBA stuff, but I don't recall monkeying with the registry when this was a phyisical machine. I'll have to look into it this evening.

paul41s · Post by **paul41s** » 27. Jan 2009, 02:18

I checked the registry and the key identified in the linked article wasn't there, so I added it and all appears good now. W2K recognizes 225GB of my 225GB virtual HD.

Thanks again.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 28. Jan 2009, 00:45

A full windows update should have solved it too.

Post by **vbox4me2** » 29. Jan 2009, 01:19

paul41s wrote:I checked the registry and the key identified in the linked article wasn't there, so I added it and all appears good now. W2K recognizes 225GB of my 225GB virtual HD.

Thanks again.

Yes hmmm... I just did the same, no problem seeing 250g or formatting 250g, but as soon as you write more then 128g... disk write errors will be flying over your head...

Post by **ppgrainbow** » 29. Jan 2009, 05:02

vbox4me2 wrote:
paul41s wrote:I checked the registry and the key identified in the linked article wasn't there, so I added it and all appears good now. W2K recognizes 225GB of my 225GB virtual HD.

Thanks again.
Yes hmmm... I just did the same, no problem seeing 250g or formatting 250g, but as soon as you write more then 128g... disk write errors will be flying over your head...

How do you know that disk write errors will occur on hard drives that are unable to access data beyond the first 127.5 GB? Does it have anything to do with the LBA 28-bit/IDE issue?

Post by **vbox4me2** » 29. Jan 2009, 11:25

ppgrainbow wrote:
vbox4me2 wrote: Yes hmmm... I just did the same, no problem seeing 250g or formatting 250g, but as soon as you write more then 128g... disk write errors will be flying over your head...
How do you know that disk write errors will occur on hard drives that are unable to access data beyond the first 127.5 GB? Does it have anything to do with the LBA 28-bit/IDE issue?

Did I just stated that I tried it? the virtual disk gets to 122 GB (131.589.972.480 bytes) and then the fun starts, delay write failures inside the VM and outside from the host, sata on/off makes no difference.