If you must try, reformat the big HDD into a much smaller partition, make it about 40 GB and load windows onto that. If that works, then partition the rest in 40 GB chunks ... that might work.
Still, if windows can identify the whole thing, then at least part of it is working. Perhaps the BIOS runs out of "room" to look for boot disk but it can actually handle a larger disk (in theory) - buffer overflow.
Btw, that's what we like to call a WAG - Wild Ace Guess.