Easy way to Set LARGE DISK DRIVES above 127 GB

[Hpro]

What if I have a hard drive which is greater than 137 GB?

And you have either Win2k or WinXP and it won't show the full Amount of Diskspace?

48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) support is needet.!

The new ATA standard, ATA/ATAPI-6, resolves the 137 GB limit by increasing the maximum number of address bits from 28 to 48 hence the name 48-bit Logical Block Addressing.

48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) extends the capacity of IDE ATA/ATAPI devices beyond the limit of 137 GB imposed by the old ATA protocol. With 48-bit addressing the new limit is now a huge 144 petabytes (i.e. 144,000,000 GB).

Thus 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) support for ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) disk drives can enable the capacity of your hard disk to exceed the current 137 GB limit.

You must meet the following requirements to use 48-bit LBA ATAPI support:


You must have a 48-bit LBA compatible BIOS.
This can be either a 48-bit LBA capable motherboard OR 48-bit LBA capable add-on IDE controller.
One such add-on IDE card is the Promise Ultra 100 TX2.


You must have a hard disk that has a capacity that is greater than 137 GB.


You must have Windows XP SP1 installed. WinXP pre SP1 will NOT work. Another alternative to WinXP SP1 is Win2k SP3.

Cautionary note:
If you do decide to re-install WinXP SP1 by installing XP and then updating to SP1, you may have a temporary situation where access to the hard drive may become an issue especially if your first partition exceeds 137 GB in size. It would be better to slipstream your XP CD to SP1. That way if you re-install XP it goes straight to XP SP1.

If you meet the above three conditions, then to properly use your hard drive:
You must enable the support in the Windows registry by adding or changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1 in the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters

To enable 48-bit LBA large-disk support in the registry:


Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).


Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters


On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:
Value name: EnableBigLba
Data type: REG_DWORD
Value data: 0x1


Quit Registry Editor.

This is a 1:1 copy of Microsoft online help - takes 5 minutes to achieve. Reinstalling Windows will take longer especially if the new hard drive is a secondary drive..

The important thing is that if you install the HARD DRIVE = out of the BOX = then prior to that make sure to have the Registry edited like above.

If the hard drive already is installed and formatted to 127 GB then it will create the REST of the UNSHOWN space on that particular hard drive.

I think everybody knows already that prior to any REGISTRY EDITING a FULL SYSTEM BACKUP should be made and also a BACKUP of the Hard Drive which is already installed and has a larger size than 127Gb.

If you like to read it from the source..

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;303013

BTW I used this way several times and it worked each time.

Regards
hpro