Only able to see 2 gig partition or drive

Issue

Only able to see 2 Gig partition or drive.

Cause

FAT16 Limitation

Solution

Windows 95 and versions of Windows and MS-DOS released before it use a FAT16 partition table that only allowed up to a 2 Gig partition. While larger hard drives can be used the drive would need to be split into multiple partitions without any third-party software.

The second release of Windows 95 (OSR2) and later versions of Windows support a new FAT referred to as FAT32. This fat table supported drives upward of 32 Gig. In order to see more than 2 Gigs you need to either have Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98 or a later version of Windows. To determine the version of your operating system see the Windows version page.

If you have an operating system that supports FAT32, to enable FAT32 support you must delete and recreate the partitions using fdisk and enable Large Disk support. If you have Windows 98, you can convert the hard drive to FAT32 support by following the below steps.

  1. Click Start, Programs, Accessories
  2. Click System Tools and then click on Drive Converter (FAT32).

It is important to know that if you convert the hard drive to FAT32, it will only convert the 2gig partition and not enable the hard drive to see over 2GIG. In order to see the complete hard drive you must run fdisk and delete and recreate all partitions.

Alternatively, if you do not have an operating system that supports FAT32, or you do not wish to erase your information from your hard drive and you are using Windows 95 OSR2, you can also use the software utility Partition Magic that can manage the hard drive and enable FAT32 support.

Additional information