Workaround to 2 TB Windows XP Limit?

frosty · September 27, 2009, 9:59pm

I bought a second generation Drobo a few days ago and set it up on a Vista machine using what the installer software suggested (a single 8GB partition).

Now I need to use the Drobo on a Windows XP machine using a USB connection. Although the Drobo Dashboard sees the Drobo, Windows does not. The Drobo drive does not appear in Windows Explorer or under Disk Management.

I’ve Googled around and it appears that I’ve run into a 2 TB limit that’s imposed by Windows XP.

Is there a workaround to this?

[L]

rambo · September 28, 2009, 12:12am

Yes, I recommend you either upgrade U Windows XP to Vista or Windows 7 or repartition ur drobo to 2TB.

frosty · September 28, 2009, 1:17am

Thanks Rambo, but that’s not an option. It’s a client’s machine.

Any other workarounds?

[L]

bhiga · September 28, 2009, 2:01am

Can’t think of anything short of connecting the Drobo to a different machine that can handle the larger volume (DroboShare, machine running XP 64-bit, Server 2003, Vista or Win7)

nbrus · October 2, 2009, 5:49pm

You could try DroboShare to connect Drobo as a network drive … that might work …

Bytec · October 2, 2009, 6:14pm

2TiB limit is caused by MBR partition table design that does not allow partitions larger than 2TiB.

A different partition table (GUID) is needed to get larger partitions.

Win XP simply does not recognize GUID partition table and therefore can’t work with such disks.