1
- 48 bit Bios Support
First thing you must be aware of is the need for 48 bit support
from your Bios, which is located on your motherboard. Without this your large
hard drive will not be fully seen. This will mean installing the latest bios update
from your computer manufacturer, or motherboard manufacturer.
WARNING - INCORRECT INSTALLATION OF A BIOS CAN CAUSE SERIOUS
PROBLEMS
There is many ways to determine your bios version, and
motherboard make.
To find out the version and mainboard download a file called
CPU-Z. It can be found here:
http://www.downloaddossier.com/www/dl/index.php?dlid=112
. It can tell you a lot about your system.
As you can see by the above image, that my laptop motherboard is
made by Hewlett Packard and the version of the bios is KF_KH.f.05. So I went to
the HP website, found my computer make and checked out the files. The latest
BIOS version for me is KF.KF.F.14. Note the slight difference in the coding, that's
why it's best to go to the site and look under the model of your machine or from
the model and make of your motherboard.
OEM Motherboard Bios: If the computer is OEM then the
best thing to do is to phone the computer manufacturer or go to their website.
Be careful that you do this because using a 3rd party BIOS upgrade could leave
your OEM version of Windows dormant.
On their website check against your machine make and
model number to find bios files available for it and also the make of
the motherboard.
FULL Motherboards Bios: To get the correct
bios for your motherboard, just go straight to the manufacturers
website.
FINDING Type & Version: The easiest way to
find the make and model of a motherboard is to look at it. Yes take the
side off your computer and look inside. 90% of computers will have
manufacturer and motherboard model printed on it.
To find out the version download a file called CPU-Z. It
can be found here:
http://www.community.windowsreinstall.com/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=45
It can tell you a lot about your system.
2
- Windows Support
Windows 2000 support for 48 bit LBA requires
installing Service Pack 2 or higher, and then it needs enabled in the registry. This
will enable support for drives larger than 137
Gigabyte.
Check out Registry changes by
clicking
here
Check Microsoft's page by following this link:
How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in
Windows 2000
To download service Pack for Windows
2000 click on the appropriate link below:
Windows
2000 Service Pack 4 -
Windows
2000 Service Pack 3 -
Windows
2000 Service Pack 2 -
Windows
2000 Service Pack 1
3
- Registry Changes
WARNING
- EDITING YOUR REGISTRY CAN CAUSE SERIOUS PROBLEMS, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK
As long as your BIOS supports 48 bit
LBA you can edit the registry in all versions of XP to check that XP is
enabled for large HDD support:
Click Start, then Run and type REGEDIT
and click OK
Go to the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters
Click on NEW then REG_DWORD, and set the value to 1 (On)
or 0 (Off)
Also check out this Microsoft article:
How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in
Windows 2000
4
- PCI ATA controller card
Check with the board version and make. If it supports it then,
just do the windows update. If not then you need to buy a new card. Sorry there
is no way around it.
5
- Software Help
3RD PARTY
Enable
LBA TOOL
INTEL
Download
the Intel 48-bit LBA Test Program (ME & 98/98SE only)
MAXTOR
Download
Maxtor Big Drive Enabler (This should run on most Computers, Maxtor
Hard Drive or not)
