I have an ASUS AC3TG-I mini-ATX computer for family games. The original HD was a WD-160 Gb that became to small after a year of service, it had W2K, Xp & Vista installed as multiboot. I replaced it with a new WD Caviar 320 Gb SATA-3 and the system bios recognises it. So I then partition it for drives C & D of 40 Gb FAT32 and drives E & F for 120 Gb NTSF using Partition Magic-7. No problems noted.

First I try to install Windows-2000 pro on drive-C, failure, installer claims all 4 partitions are either corrupted, full or unformatted. attempt format first to drive C then D, W2K installer states it is unable to format for either.

Then boot into DOS7 and check with FDISK - looks Ok, so re-format C & D Ok.

Next, try to install Xp pro first to drive-D, same failure, try again to drive-C and it REFORMATS then installs Ok, Xp boots & runs but still claims all other partitions are corrupted or need format, though it will access, save & delete files from them. Also claims drive-F is free/unused.

Try again to install W2K to Drive-D but have same format failures.

In frustration I buy & download Partition Commander-11 for $50. Use to remove & re-build all partitions as before, except E & F are reduced in size to 99 Gb each - installer gives same results with W2K.
(Note that vendor of Partition Commander-11 will not issue refunds if their program proves useless to help you).

Lots of uncertainty here and need help!

I think part of my problem is that W2K & Xp cannot access a partition larger than about 107 Gb, yet all partition on the new HD are less than this value and Xp seems less affected than W2K.

Have considered only installing Vista then using MS Virtual-PC to host the other OS's I want, but past attempts with this show that family & children get confused when closing a subordinate OS vs Virtual-PC shutdown, causing constant reboot problems - undesirable solution!

HELP - suggestions or comments appreciated....

You've asked the same question at Tom's Hardware forums:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/27977 ... rive-setup

so there's no point in me duplicating effort much here, and I'll keep this short.

FYI, HDD Guru forum is not a place for OS sys admin questions, so if (as I expect, and as has already been suggested to you on Tom's Hardware) your problems are related to OS (and/or perhaps BIOS) limitations on the max size of supported disks (not partition size, which is where you've been focussing), then you're off-topic here, as none of that is a disk fault. One other area which might be involved (I can't tell from the details given, and it would also be off-topic here), is ensuring that you have the latest Windows SATA drivers for your motherboard - there are incompatibility issues with SATA-3 drives attached to some older motherboards.

I suggest you download the WD Data LifeGuard for DOS CD image (using another PC, if necessary), burn that & boot it to test your new WD 320GB disk. I expect it'll confirm that the disk is OK, and then you can focus on your Windows and/or BIOS issue(s), using a suitable forum instead of this one. Good luck!

Thank you for the reply and suggestion of WD Data Lifeguard CD, I was not aware this existed.

I bow to your possible superior knowledge about where my problem lies but I am still convinced that this is a HDD problem. There are other steps I have taken in trying to trouble-shoot this, many not mentioned here that give such indications, one I will mention now.

My personal primary computer is a home build ASUS mobo with 3 Gb memory, dual-core intel at 3.2 Ghz and 500 Gb WD HDD running as dual boot Xp pro (80 Gb) and Vista Ultimate (400 Gb).

When problems were initially discovered with the 320 Gb HDD under discussion, that HDD was move temporarily to this primary computer. These, during attempts to partition the HDD to install Xp, using attempts both as FAT32 and NTFS, I experienced the same problems over again as with the initial effort on the game computer.

I have had 2 success during these experiments of a successful install of W2K on a 35 Gb partition, but the drive would not then allow me to make any other partition - if I tried then the successful partition was nuked and no working partitions resulted.

To try and resolve my problem I will today download the WD CD you mentioned and see what results occur.

Thank you again for your help.

Other potentially-useful non-Windows test utilities also exist (like MHDD), but WD DLG is easier to use.

Note that some problems reported by WD DLG may not be due to the disk, if you are suffering from SATA-3 interface incompatibility issues which I mentioned before.


I wouldn't do that - I didn't tell you where your problem lies, just that your symptoms seem similar to known non-disk limitations. Any attempted diagnosis is only as good as the information on which it is based, and I now see that additional info was available...


Oh dear. So now I look stupid, due to you having additional useful information that you chose not to provide earlier, and which I therefore couldn't consider before replying. I hate wasting my time like that, but at least the situation is clear now.