Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
In the case of operating systems that support drives over 8.4GB, the maximum drive size
limitations depend on the BIOS and hard drive interface standard, not the OS. Instead,
other limitations come into play for the volumes (partitions) and files that can be created
and managed by the various operating systems. These limitations depend on not only the
operating system involved, but also the file system that is used for the volume.
Table 7.24
shows the minimum and maximum volume (partition) size and file size limitations of the
variousWindowsoperatingsystems.Asnotedintheprevioussection,theoriginalversion
of XP, as well as Windows 2000/NT or Windows 95/98/Me, does not currently provide
native support for ATA hard drives that are larger than 137GB. You need to use Windows
7, Vista, or XP with Service Pack 1 or later installed to use an ATA drive over 137GB.
This does not affect drives attached via USB, FireWire, SCSI, or other interfaces.
Table 7.24 Operating System Volume/File Size Limitations by File System
