48-bit LBA/137GB hard drive limit

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Black
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim Black

I followed Article 303013 by installing SP1 for XP Pro
and the hotfix for atapi.sys version update. My new WD
160GB continues to show 127GB in XP instead of ~149. With
SP1 installed there is no EnableBigLba entry in the
refered to registry line. The BIOS does recognize the HD
as 160GB. Does anyone have a recommendation other than
reformatting.

Jim
 
Jim, you have to create the EnableBigLba entry. Just rt click in the rt
pane and select new dword. Create the entry and then
select the value 1. Use Modify to do that.
 
Applying SP1 to an XP installation that has an existing 127GB disk
partition will not magically enlarge that partition to encompass the
entire drive. Run XP's Disk Management to see what's on the drive,
both existing partition(s) and unallocated space.

If you want to create a partition larger than 128GB during the
installation process, you must use an XP installation CD that has SP1
incorporated in it, either by slipstreaming an old XP CD with SP1 or
by using a recent XP CD that comes that way.
 
Risky but perhaps some third party partitioning software
such as Partition Magic may let you extend the partition
size. If you go into disk management does it show
unpartitioned space?
 
Andy

Thanks for the info. I had already attempted Disk
Manager. It shows 21GB unallocated space. After using the
wizard to create a partition, it gets to finish and shows
an unspecific error message that refers me to the event
log which was not helpful. I've also attempted an
EnableBigLga registry entry; it didn't change anything.
Any ideas?
 
Thanks for the recommendation. The registry entry didn't
work and an attempt to have disk manager create a
partition on the 21GB of unallocated space concludes with
an unspecified error message which does not show up in
the event log. Any ideas?
 
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