I have a computer (Fry's) whose motherboard/bios support drives in
excess of the 128GB barrier imposed by XP before the SP1. I checked
the MS article on enabling large drives in XP and verified I am
running SP1 but per the article verified that my ATAPI driver is
downlevel (.1106, not the required .1135).
At this point the MS article says to install a Hotfix (Art.
331958)which apparently does some registry hack to enable LBA and
drives bigger than 128GB.
I was about to do this (even though I have SP1 installed) primarily
because it appeared my ATAPI driver is downlevel AND my bios supports
larger drives (I'm trying to get a Hitachi 160GB drive's capacity
fully recognized). Until I thought of the following:
Even if I did so (and thus INTERNALLY installed 160GB drives
hanging on the ATAPI bus would thereafter be fully recognized), does
the fact that my 160 GB ATAPI drive is installed in an EXTERNAL
AdsPyro FIREWIRE box mean that there must be also be a driver for the
Firewire box that supports large drives in order to see the full 160GB
? 128 GB of the drive is seen in its present location externally in
the Firewire box just fine. And I don't recall ever having to have
installed any driver for the Firewire box in order to see the 128GB
via the firewire box.
In otherwords, if I update the ATAPI driver per MS's suggestion,
should I then be able to see the full 160GB REGARDLESS of whether its
inside the computer directly on the IDE bus or is external and
accessed through firewire ?
Any help would be most appreciated.
Sorry for the long note but I wanted to be clear what my setup was.

Bob

On 2 May 2004 07:15:37 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (bob carwell) wrote:

>I have a computer (Fry's) whose motherboard/bios support drives in
>excess of the 128GB barrier imposed by XP before the SP1. I checked
>the MS article on enabling large drives in XP and verified I am
>running SP1 but per the article verified that my ATAPI driver is
>downlevel (.1106, not the required .1135).
> At this point the MS article says to install a Hotfix (Art.
>331958)which apparently does some registry hack to enable LBA and
>drives bigger than 128GB.
> I was about to do this (even though I have SP1 installed) primarily
>because it appeared my ATAPI driver is downlevel AND my bios supports
>larger drives (I'm trying to get a Hitachi 160GB drive's capacity
>fully recognized). Until I thought of the following:
> Even if I did so (and thus INTERNALLY installed 160GB drives
>hanging on the ATAPI bus would thereafter be fully recognized), does
>the fact that my 160 GB ATAPI drive is installed in an EXTERNAL
>AdsPyro FIREWIRE box mean that there must be also be a driver for the
>Firewire box that supports large drives in order to see the full 160GB
>? 128 GB of the drive is seen in its present location externally in
>the Firewire box just fine. And I don't recall ever having to have
>installed any driver for the Firewire box in order to see the 128GB
>via the firewire box.
> In otherwords, if I update the ATAPI driver per MS's suggestion,
>should I then be able to see the full 160GB REGARDLESS of whether its
>inside the computer directly on the IDE bus or is external and
>accessed through firewire ?

No, the firewire device does not use the ATAPI driver.

> Any help would be most appreciated.
> Sorry for the long note but I wanted to be clear what my setup was.
>
> Bob