Solved 6TB HDD, but BIOS won't allow over 2TB

[dg1261]

This all started with wanting to duel boot Win 10 and Linux, Win 98 for shits and giggles.

If you're still intent on multi-booting, just remember that all OSes will need to be on the MBR disk. That, of course, will require multiple partitions on the 2TB disk, but you should have no issues with the size of those partitions if, as I mentioned, you redirect your user data folders to the second disk.

As for Win98, I would not even try adding that to your multi-boot plans. First, W98 SE can only work within the first 128 GB of a HDD (or 8 GB for W98 first edition). It will not be able to access anything beyond that point in the rest of the 2TB disk, and nothing at all on the GPT disk. Also, there was no NTFS support in W98, so it could only see FAT/FAT32 partitions. And even if you agree to work within those restrictions, it's unlikely you'll be able to find W98 drivers for your Vista/7-era hardware.

If you really want to toy around with W98 a bit, you'll be far better off installing VirtualBox and running W98 in a virtual machine.

I'll probably have quite a few more questions to make sure I do this right.

Be prepared for some disagreement as to the "right way" to multi-boot. Basically, there are two general approaches: the Microsoft way, and the third-party way. The Microsoft way entails wrangling with the BCD and registry edits, while the third-party way is more straightforward but does require a third-party boot manager.

Personally, I would never, ever, condone the Microsoft way, which I consider fragile and kludgy. But others, including some people here, seem to like it.

If you're still in a learning mood, I wrote a couple webpages long ago that may help you get a better grasp of some of the issues:

Understanding MultiBooting
An Introduction to Virtual PC​

I wrote both a decade ago, yet their principles are still valid today. Nevertheless, they're old so don't get stuck on specifics (for example, the BCD has replaced the boot.ini file, I now recommend the BootIt-BM boot manager instead of XOSL), but peruse them to get a feel for the broader concepts involved.


Dan


P.S.: FTR, my main machine is a laptop with two MBR drives that include 6 multi-boot partitions, 2 data partitions, and 19 virtual machines--covering everything from DOS and Android VMs to Win10.

My workbench desktop multi-boots 3 OSes on a 500 GB MBR disk and a 4TB GPT disk for data--a scheme similar to what you might opt for.

 

[Escar Frazzle]

Oh boy, this has been an adventure. I've found out my computer seems to lie in a weird place where Windows 7 uses MBR while most 7 computers shipped with GPT. It gets even worse when I found out that a lot of Windows 7 computers shipped using GPT were made to mimic using MBR for a reason I don't know. fml lol. The good news is that I'm now running GPT on my 5TB HDD and using ~600GB on the old HDD for my OS.

For future readers, Windows 10 won't let you move your users folder to another partition other than the one with your boot. I was able to move all my libraries over which is where most of the data is stored anyway.

Wanting to duel boot Windows 7, 10 and Linux seems to have opened Pandora's box. I'm running Windows 10 bios which seems to be somewhat of a rare bread. I'm "almost" forced to pick between duel booting 10 with only one other OS because of MBR. From what I've read I "could" ditch the swap partition and be fine (oh well). Linux has been a nightmare because it's hard to find other pc's running windows 10 with bios like I stated above. If it pleases the forum gods I'd like to stay here even though I'm running Windows 10 because it's my best for finding help and you're really fast/helpful. Marked as solved, thanks.

 

[dg1261]

I've found out my computer seems to lie in a weird place where Windows 7 uses MBR while most 7 computers shipped with GPT. It gets even worse when I found out that a lot of Windows 7 computers shipped using GPT were made to mimic using MBR for a reason I don't know.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but that's not been my experience. I've worked on hundreds of computers and every OEM Win7 computer I've seen has come from the factory as BIOS/MBR. I'm not saying it never happened, but I have never actually seen one that came from the factory with Win7 installed as UEFI/GPT.

UEFI/GPT has indeed been the norm for Win8 and Win10, but BIOS/MBR was the norm for Win7.

The good news is that I'm now running GPT on my 5TB HDD and using ~600GB on the old HDD for my OS.

Perhaps a clearer way of stating that would be that you're booting a 2TB MBR disk with a 5TB GPT secondary disk. Your screenshot corroborates that.

There's nothing rare or unusual about that; I've even got two desktops here at home booting from MBR disks with GPT data disks.

Windows 10 won't let you move your users folder to another partition other than the one with your boot. I was able to move all my libraries over which is where most of the data is stored anyway.

That confuses me, but perhaps we're using different terminology.

Win10, like several of its predecessors, has no problem with a user's data folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, et al) residing on a different hard drive.

By "users folder", are you perhaps referring to your profile's root folder (e.g., "C:\Users\{profile name}") itself? If so, then I agree; the profile folder is best left on the C: partition. But that's not a Win10-specific issue, though--all prior Windows OSes also allowed easy relocation of the user data folders, while the profile root remained on the OS partition.

Regarding libraries, I wonder if you're referring to the user data folders as "libraries"?

Note that a "library" doesn't actually reside anywhere. It's just a concept, not a location. A library is nothing more than a group of one or more (typically two, by default) storage folders displayed in a collective fashion. The storage folders can reside anywhere on the system, and the files aren't actually merged, they're just displayed that way.

Those storage folders do reside someplace specific on your system, but the "library" does not. IOW, you don't actually "move" a library, but you can move, add or remove the storage folders that are within it.

Wanting to duel boot Windows 7, 10 and Linux seems to have opened Pandora's box. I'm running Windows 10 bios which seems to be somewhat of a rare bread. I'm "almost" forced to pick between duel booting 10 with only one other OS because of MBR. From what I've read I "could" ditch the swap partition and be fine (oh well).

Microsoft requires all OEMs to ship Win10 configured with UEFI boot, which necessitates GPT partitioning. So yes, you'll more often see UEFI/GPT with Win10 because that's the default. However, Win10 has absolutely no qualms running from a MBR boot disk if you manually set it up that way.

I'm not a fan of Win10, so I only have a few of them on my home network, but they all boot from MBR disks because that's the way I set them up.

As for linux, you should be able to create an Extended partition on your MBR disk and subdivide it into multiple logical volumes. That allows you to have many more than four partitions on the MBR disk. You should be able to subdivide it into space for both your linux OS and a linux swap file. I believe linux can be booted from a logical volume in the Extended partition.

But I'm no linux expert, so others will have to verify that for you. Today I only use linux in VMs, and it's been well over a decade since I had it installed as a multi-boot partition.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I choose the old fashion way to dual.. boot it makes life easier
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CDSVXTY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1