Recognizing large external HD

[Dave Neve]

Hi

I want to buy a large internal HD which will be connected to my XP/SP2
system.

I seem to remember that some years ago XP had problems recognising large
HD's (often over 120 Go)

Is this still an issue please?

Regards

Dave Neve

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I want to buy a large internal HD which will be connected to my XP/SP2 system.

^^^^^^^^
Your subject line speaks a different language.

 

[DL]

The issue was with pre winxp sp1
sp1 and above fixed the issue

 

[DL]

PS Provided your bios supports large hd's of course

 

[Dave Neve]

Thanks Dl

PS Provided your bios supports large hd's of course

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Thanks Dl

ROFL! There is *no* such BIOS support required when talking about external
HDDs (subject line).

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi

I want to buy a large internal HD which will be connected to my XP/SP2
system.

I seem to remember that some years ago XP had problems recognising large
HD's (often over 120 Go)

Is this still an issue please?

You need two things to support a drive over 137GB:

1. If it's an internal drive (your subject line and question above
disagree on this), a motherboard with a BIOS and controller that
supports 48-bit LBA (or alternatively, an add-in controller card that
does).

2. At least SP1 of Windows XP.

 

[Lil' Dave]

ROFL! There is *no* such BIOS support required when talking about external
HDDs (subject line).

The external case contains a bios of nature for "recognizing" the hard drive
in the external case. Some older external cases I've run into can only
recognize 128GB max. Larger hard drives used in such a case are limited to
128GB usage. The one I'm using now has a ~500GB limitation.
Dave

 

[Lil' Dave]

Hi

I want to buy a large internal HD which will be connected to my XP/SP2
system.

I seem to remember that some years ago XP had problems recognising large
HD's (often over 120 Go)

Is this still an issue please?

Regards

Dave Neve

No, its not with SP1 or SP2 installations. However, the external case's
bios is an issue if it cannot "see" the full capacity of the installed hard
drive in question. E X T E R N A L was mentioned in the subject line.

Internally, its still a problem if the system bios can't see the entire
capacity of the hard drive in question. Am assuming you're NOT using a
boot-time bios extender (not recommended).
Dave

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The external case contains a bios of nature for "recognizing" the hard
drive in the external case.

Yep. Anyway, the HDD for an external drive case is usually the same piece
of hardware as an *internal* HDD. Please note that I was referring to
*external* HDDs (USB, Firewire) and therefore, to complete units per se.