XP install problem

[Guest]

I am on day 3 of my battle to make my new hard drive work properly. It is a
Seagate 400Gb, I am running Windows XP Home, and my system board is an Intel
D850GB.

First, I had all kinds of hal.dll issues. I was told this is because I am
trying to install XP on a partition that is larger that it supports. So, I
upgraded to XP Home (with SP2 embedded on disk) and the hal.dll issue went
away. But, if I try to install XP on a partition size larger than 137Gb, it
gives me a "disk read error" and won't let me continue with setup.

From what I read on various websites (including this one) and from the
Seagate website, the 2 things preventing it from seeing the whole disk size
is not having SP2 or having an updated BIOS. The Seagate tech had me install
on a 100Gb partition so I could get to windows and download the flash
utility, which I did successfully. However, to my dissapointment, I am still
unable to install XP using one full sized partition.

I have no idea what to do next. I have a fully updated BIOS and SP2 on my
XP, and I still can't get the full drive size out of this thing. I
re-installed XP on a 130Gb partition and it worked fine, at least I can get
to Windows now.

Any ideas or advice? Am I stuck with drives smaller than 137Gb untill I get
a new motherboard? Do I have any options? Thank you very much for all of
your help so far, and for any advice on my current issue as well!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am on day 3 of my battle to make my new hard drive work properly.
It is a Seagate 400Gb, I am running Windows XP Home, and my system
board is an Intel D850GB.

First, I had all kinds of hal.dll issues. I was told this is because
I am trying to install XP on a partition that is larger that it
supports. So, I upgraded to XP Home (with SP2 embedded on disk) and
the hal.dll issue went away. But, if I try to install XP on a
partition size larger than 137Gb, it gives me a "disk read error" and
won't let me continue with setup.

From what I read on various websites (including this one) and from the
Seagate website, the 2 things preventing it from seeing the whole
disk size is not having SP2 or having an updated BIOS.

You need two things to support a drive that large:

1. 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.

The Seagate
tech had me install on a 100Gb partition so I could get to windows
and download the flash utility, which I did successfully. However,
to my dissapointment, I am still unable to install XP using one full
sized partition.

Since you now have SP2 and the latest BIOS, the problem is presumably that
the disk controller on your motherboard doesn't support 48-bit LBA.

I have no idea what to do next. I have a fully updated BIOS and SP2
on my XP, and I still can't get the full drive size out of this
thing. I re-installed XP on a 130Gb partition and it worked fine, at
least I can get to Windows now.

Any ideas or advice? Am I stuck with drives smaller than 137Gb
untill I get a new motherboard? Do I have any options?

You could try installing an add-in disk controller card that supports 48-bit
LBA. I'm not sure how much these cost, and since new motherboard is usually
inexpensive, I'm not sure which is a better choice. You might want to google
to get prices on such an add-in card.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Your older Intel motherboard likely was not designed to support
hard drives exceeding 137GB. The limitation cannot be overcome
unless Intel designed a BIOS update enabling LBA support.

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I am on day 3 of my battle to make my new hard drive work properly. It is a
| Seagate 400Gb, I am running Windows XP Home, and my system board is an Intel
| D850GB.
|
| First, I had all kinds of hal.dll issues. I was told this is because I am
| trying to install XP on a partition that is larger that it supports. So, I
| upgraded to XP Home (with SP2 embedded on disk) and the hal.dll issue went
| away. But, if I try to install XP on a partition size larger than 137Gb, it
| gives me a "disk read error" and won't let me continue with setup.
|
| From what I read on various websites (including this one) and from the
| Seagate website, the 2 things preventing it from seeing the whole disk size
| is not having SP2 or having an updated BIOS. The Seagate tech had me install
| on a 100Gb partition so I could get to windows and download the flash
| utility, which I did successfully. However, to my dissapointment, I am still
| unable to install XP using one full sized partition.
|
| I have no idea what to do next. I have a fully updated BIOS and SP2 on my
| XP, and I still can't get the full drive size out of this thing. I
| re-installed XP on a 130Gb partition and it worked fine, at least I can get
| to Windows now.
|
| Any ideas or advice? Am I stuck with drives smaller than 137Gb untill I get
| a new motherboard? Do I have any options? Thank you very much for all of
| your help so far, and for any advice on my current issue as well!

 

[Guest]

Thank you both for the reply. I will keep trying, the microsoft article was
pretty technical and I found myself getting lost. The host adapter card is
sounding like a good idea.

Thanks again!

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Thank you both for the reply. I will keep trying, the microsoft article
was
pretty technical and I found myself getting lost. The host adapter card
is
sounding like a good idea.

Thanks again!

Be sure to do research on people's experiences with the host cards available
to you. I've found that some offer disappointing results at best. Some
of the host controller cards available focus on SATA and require an extra
converter to work with IDE drives.

Expect to have to redo the install.

HTH
-pk