There are issues and workaround for drives beyond 2 TB but it is easier not to go beyond such capacities in the first place. I recommend using modern SATA drives, XP detects them fine and can handle large capacities. FDISK, the partition utility that ships with DOS and early version of Windows cannot handle more than 64 GB, even if the BIOS supports larger drives.įor Windows XP you do not need to worry about any of this. Strange things happen when you use DOS or early versions of Windows to partition larger hardrives, for example a 320 GB drive. Most BIOS support 32 GB and so do DOS and early versions of Windows. This makes them perfect for retro gaming PCs. I use SeaTools for DOS to put a 32 GB capacity limit on modern drives. Some of these diagnostics test the drive hardware, as others test the logical hard drive features (partitions, sectors, file system, etc.

I have tested it with various Seagate and Samsung drives, quite recent ones as well with 2TB capacity. The DOS version of SeaTools should support Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung drives. Spread the loveSeagate is a well-known brand when it comes to storage devices, and it’s no surprise that they also offer a diagnostic tool for their hard drives.

Use an image burning software to burn it onto a blank CD-R.

Seagate sea tools