Hi there,

It looks like 2TB is the max that Windows XP can support. However, reading sources online it looks like your 5TB hard drive should be able to work with the program you listed = Paragon GPT Loader.

 

Any drive larger then 2TB must be Initialized as GPT for a single partition. Windows XP 32bit does not recognize GPT initialized drives.
Windows XP 64bit will recognize a 5TB GPT drive as a secondary drive for storage only. If you must use a 5TB drive in Windows XP 32bit then you will need to Initialize it MBR and partition it into three 1.60TB partitions.

 

Thanks.

But can you reply to each question individually?. Like 1) ..... ; 1a) ..... ; 2) ..... ; 2a) ....

 

1. I am not familiar with Paragon GPT Loader, I can't tell you if it will work Why don't you try it and tell us how it goes?

1a. Windows XP 64bit will recognize a 5TB GPT drive as a secondary drive for storage only

2. You cannot use a 5TB GPT drive as a Windows Boot Drive, unless your Laptop uses UEFI Bios. If your laptop is more then a couple of years old, you don't have UEFI Bios. You can boot into Setup (Bios) go to the Security tab, if is shows UEFI Bios, you have it, if not, you don't. You can use a 5TB GPT drive in Windows 7 64 bit for Storage Only.

2a. Windows XP 32bit does not recognize GPT initialized drives.

2.a+ Windows XP 64bit will recognize a 5TB GPT drive as a secondary drive for storage only. If you must use a 5TB drive in Windows XP 32bit then you will need to Initialize it MBR and partition it into three 1.60TB partitions.

If you want to use the 5TB drive as a Windows 7 64bit boot drive, you will have to Initialize it MBR and partition it into three 160TB partitions, with one dedicated to Windows.

 

"If you want to use the 5TB drive as a Windows 7 64bit boot drive, you will have to Initialize it MBR and partition it into three 1.60TB partitions, with one dedicated to Windows."

That is not possible when the sector size is 512 bytes. The third partition would need to begin at 3.2TB, in which case the starting LBA would not fit within the 32 bits allotted for it in the partition table.

 

Here https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...dows-7-installed-32-bit-can-it-create-guid/64c0bd33-ec57-46c0-bbb6-34fc09be51a3 You guys can work out the rest.

 

So it is not possible to make the 5 TB drive as a external storage device under Windows XP SP3. Right?.

 

One way would be to find an enclosure that is configured for a sector size of 4096 bytes. Then use Seagate's DiscWizard to partition and format the drive in MBR mode. That's how Seagate sets up its external drives to ensure that they are compatible with all flavours of Windows XP.

 

You cannot use the drive as one 5TB size drive in XP.
As stated, you can get an Enclosure that supports larger drives, and then Initialize the drive MBR With Disc Wizard or any other partitioning software and partition it into 3 Partitions.

 

"You cannot use the drive as one 5TB size drive in XP.
As stated, you can get an Enclosure that supports larger drives, and then Initialize the drive MBR With Disc Wizard or any other partitioning software and partition it into 3 Partitions."

You can use DiscWizard to format the external drive with a single 5TB partition, provided that its sector size is 4KB. In fact the MBR limit now becomes 16TiB rather than 2TiB.

 

you really need 5 TB?