>2TB HDD For Windows XP 32

[ImWolf]

When shopping for a larger capacity portable HDD that would function with older WinXP32 machines, most of the reading I came across said that with this version of Windows the OS cannot read drives that are bigger than 2Tb. After a few more days of searching the web, I came across an article that claimed otherwise.​

https://community.wd.com/t/new-external-hard-drive-that-works-with-windows-xp/221582​

Apparently, the 2Tb limit is dictated by the NTFS 4K FAU system, but there were some manufacturers that had briefly (at least?) produced drives implementing “512b Emulation”. Western Digital made some of these, and when these drives are formatted using an older version of their “Quick Formatting Tool” the drive will work fine with XP 32.​

After reading this article, I spent a lot more time reading HDD spec’s, and specifically looking for customer reviews concerning Windows XP, which are very few and far between. I had even contacted WD asking which of their products still have the “512b Emulation”. The Rep. said they just don’t know and would have someone e-mail me a list… which never happened.​

The article above speaks mostly of compatible “external” drives which need an AC power source, but I wanted to buy a “portable” drive which is USB powered. From reading actual feedback I could find only 2 WD drives I was willing to take a chance on.​

WD_BLACK P10 Game Drive WDBZ7D0060BBK-WESN
WD Elements (3-6 Tb) WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN

In my case I bought the Elements 5Gb drive. When first plugged into an XP32 machine I heard the tone of something added, but File Manager did not display the drive. Then, per instructions I had read, I hooked it up to a Win7 machine, and formatted it using an older version of WD_Quick_Formatter_Win_1_2_0_10, which has the “Windows XP Compatible” option. The format certainly was fast! After this, XP recognized a 4.54Gb drive, which sources say is at the low end of “normal” for larger drives.

I’ve been copying data onto the new drive for a few hours now, and the Xfer rate with USB 2.0 is running about 16.7Mbps.

Apparently, Seagate also produced some drives with the “512b Emulation”, which includes the "LaCie Rugged 5TB - STFR5000800".
Amazon: "It will work with XP, just make sure when you first plug the drive in and run the LaCie Setup that you select to format it as a FAT32 drive."

Given the limitations on partition and file size for Fat32, I wasn't going to trust this persons feedback.

If you’re also in need of a larger storage device, I would recommend you do as much research as possible before buying something that may not work.

 

[WindowsUser101]

Something to mention too is that Windows XP cannot work with over 2GB of RAM, if you have 3GB or more, it will only detect 2GB.

 

[ImWolf]

I have a couple XP machines with more than 2G of Ram.

 

[MisterEd]

Something to mention too is that Windows XP cannot work with over 2GB of RAM, if you have 3GB or more, it will only detect 2GB.

The retail version of Windows XP was 32-bits. The CPUs were also 32-bit and could address 4GB RAM. However, not all was usable by the user. That was for two reasons:
1. Windows XP had memory addresses reserved for system use
2. Some RAM was reserved for use by the video chip
This meant that only about 3GB was left for use by the user and programs

The following showed that about 3.4GB of RAM were available on my laptop with Windows XP Tablet Edition. The RAM from 3.4 to 4GB was reserved for system use.

The specs for my laptop said it only supported up to 2GB RAM but 4GB works just fine. I suspect that 2GB was only the maximum amount of RAM tested not a real limit was was really 4GB.

There was a special 64-bit version of Windows XP called the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Naturally if you wanted to to run the 64-bit version of Windows XP with more than 4GB RAM you needed a 64-bit CPU and a motherboard that supported more than 4GB RAM.

I never tried Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The regular version of Windows XP with 512MB, 1GB, 2GB RAM was all I ever used.

When I switched to Windows 7 I started with the 32-bit version with 4GB RAM. I later updated to the 64-bit version and 8GB RAM.

Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases

Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases - Win32 apps

Describes the memory limits for supported Windows and Windows Server releases and provides lists of memory limits.

learn.microsoft.com

Back to the topic of this thread...

Windows XP formatting did not officially support drives larger than 2TB. However, I think I remember WD tool you mentioned for formatting drives larger than 2TB. However, I never had a need to use it.

With Windows XP I never used a hard drive larger than 1TB. If I needed any more drive space I used more than one drive. Both my Windows XP desktop computers have two 300GB drives. My laptop with a dual-boot of Windows XP/7 only has a 250GB drive. That is more than enough drive space for my needs with them.

In fact my Windows 11 desktop only has two internal 2TB drives. I kept the total small enough to easily back up. All my larger drives are external ones. They range in size from 2TB to 20TB.

 

[cleverscreenname]

2TB is the limit of MasterBootRecord partitioning scheme, so GuidPartitionTable was created to succeed it. There are several 3rd party programs that can translate for XP32 to work with the drive. I've tried a few, and lost data a few times, so now I simply adhere to 2TB drives.

XP64 natively reads and writes GPT drives but cannot boot from one. Vista and newer can boot from them, provided you're in UEFI mode not BIOS mode.
XP32 and older only natively support MBR drives. 2TB is also the limit of the FAT32 file system.

Larger hard drives often have physical 4,096 byte sectors to achieve the higher capacities, so they offer '512 byte sector' emulation for easier compatibility with older tools and systems.
A lot of these 2TB+ tools were coded by hard drive manufacturers and they included locks to only work on their brand of drives. The most well-known, highest quality, universal program is Paragon GPT Loader (I can supply a copy if anyone wants to use it.)

As you noted ImWolf, external drives often offer their own translation service as part of the case. If such a service is in use, then you can never remove the drive from that case and connect it with a different interface, because the format will be nonstandard and unreadable.

 

[ImWolf]

As you noted ImWolf, external drives often offer their own translation service as part of the case. If such a service is in use, then you can never remove the drive from that case and connect it with a different interface, because the format will be nonstandard and unreadable.

So far, the WD Elements 5Gb drive that I bought is working as I hoped. I'm moving it between XP32, Win7, and Linux64 machines without any hiccups.

 

[tekkaman]

When I got my first 5TB external hard drive I had XP 64 installed and got no problems. It could read regular NTFS and could even read GPT hard drives too.

When talking about ram. If you have 4GB physical ram XP32 will detect 3.5GB and it works fine.

 

[WindowsUser101]

The retail version of Windows XP was 32-bits. The CPUs were also 32-bit and could address 4GB RAM. However, not all was usable by the user. That was for two reasons:
1. Windows XP had memory addresses reserved for system use
2. Some RAM was reserved for use by the video chip
This meant that only about 3GB was left for use by the user and programs

The following showed that about 3.4GB of RAM were available on my laptop with Windows XP Tablet Edition. The RAM from 3.4 to 4GB was reserved for system use.

View attachment 1572

The specs for my laptop said it only supported up to 2GB RAM but 4GB works just fine. I suspect that 2GB was only the maximum amount of RAM tested not a real limit was was really 4GB.

There was a special 64-bit version of Windows XP called the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Naturally if you wanted to to run the 64-bit version of Windows XP with more than 4GB RAM you needed a 64-bit CPU and a motherboard that supported more than 4GB RAM.

I never tried Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The regular version of Windows XP with 512MB, 1GB, 2GB RAM was all I ever used.

When I switched to Windows 7 I started with the 32-bit version with 4GB RAM. I later updated to the 64-bit version and 8GB RAM.
View attachment 1574
Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases

Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases - Win32 apps

Describes the memory limits for supported Windows and Windows Server releases and provides lists of memory limits.

learn.microsoft.com

Back to the topic of this thread...

Windows XP formatting did not officially support drives larger than 2TB. However, I think I remember WD tool you mentioned for formatting drives larger than 2TB. However, I never had a need to use it.

With Windows XP I never used a hard drive larger than 1TB. If I needed any more drive space I used more than one drive. Both my Windows XP desktop computers have two 300GB drives. My laptop with a dual-boot of Windows XP/7 only has a 250GB drive. That is more than enough drive space for my needs with them.

In fact my Windows 11 desktop only has two internal 2TB drives. I kept the total small enough to easily back up. All my larger drives are external ones. They range in size from 2TB to 20TB.

I knew about Pro X64, I used to use it but drivers for my PC would be a pain to hunt down compared to the 32-bit version