48 bit LBA problem

[Rick Routliffe]

This is my second post regarding this problem. Thanks to
those who replied previously, but I still have not been
able to format to capacity.

The HDD involved is a 160 gig Seagate Barracuda 7. It is
currently installed as a slave, but I ultimately want it
to become the boot drive. The problem is that XP will not
format it larger than about 127 gig (127.99to be exact). I
have tried using both the Seagate software and XP to
format.

It has been formatted several times using the software
provided by Seagate. XP will see the drive, but says it is
not formatted and asks if I want to format. It looks like
all is going well until it reaches 100%, then it gives a
message saying it cannot complete the format.

In Computer Manage XP recognises the drive and shows it as
149 GIG (I think this number is correct for a 160 gig
drive?), but again will not complete a format of the full
drive. I played with partition sizes until I discovered
what capacity would work. As it sits right now I have 3
partitions as follows. 1 at 10.26GB and formatted, 1 at
117.73 and formatted, 1 at 21.06 that will not format but
it shows as healthy (that's puzzling). All attempts were
using NTFS.

-BIOS is 48 bit supported and sees the drive as 160041MB.
-Both hard disks are on the primary IDE channel.
-XP Home has SP1 installed.
-Registry has large drive enabled REG_DWORD 0X00000001 (1)
-Atapi.sys is the correct version (5.1.2600.1135) as per
the Microsoft article regarding 48 bit LBA.

Is there something I am still not doing correctly? I did a
lot of research on large drive limitations prior to this
install and thought I had everything I needed. Right now I
am both puzzled and frustrated. Any help will be
appreciated.

Thanks, Rick

 

[Brett Moffat]

This is my second post regarding this problem. Thanks to
those who replied previously, but I still have not been
able to format to capacity.

The HDD involved is a 160 gig Seagate Barracuda 7. It is
currently installed as a slave, but I ultimately want it
to become the boot drive. The problem is that XP will not
format it larger than about 127 gig (127.99to be exact). I
have tried using both the Seagate software and XP to
format.

I have just been down the same path with this drive.

The solution for me was to install V2.3 of the Intel Application
Accelerator which I downloaded from Gigabyte support. I have a GA-81EXP
m/b. Intel 845E chipset. The drive formats now to approx 149 gig.

 

[Mikey]

Hi;
That the MAX you'll get.

OUR/YOUR expected BINARY calculation:
1 024 x 1 024 x 1 024 x "149" =
====
159.987 531 896
which is close enough to
160.000 000 000 in the DECIMAL system or/and commercial world for the
manufacturer to call it a 160 "giger"
It's to THEIR advantage to use that system. Looks better by over over 7
and 3/8 %.
(1 binary gig = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1 073 741 824)
Mikey

 

[Rick Routliffe]

Brett;
Thanks for the reply. I updated Intel Application
Accellerator to 2.3 and the drive formatted to full
capacity. Thought I had done this already, but obviously
not. Sometimes when you keep trying something a bunch of
times I guess the mind gets muddled and you miss something
obvious and critical. My next adventure will be to make
this a boot drive, instead of the slave, you guys may hear
from me again.

Anyway thanks again for the reply, it sure helped!!!!