On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 13:10:09 GMT, Knowing that it was a Hollywood
invention that lemmings jump off cliffs Rob Jones
wrote :

Hi I'm planning to upgrade to a 160GB HD however, I have read some info
about recognition issues with MBs and XP. It appears that older MBs pre Jan
1st 2003 do not have support for 48-bit LBA. XP will only read 137GB, no
more.

To be honest I cant remember when I bought mine but according to a list of
Bios support for my MB (Asus A7N8X Deluxe) the Bios needed for the 48-bit
LBA Support is 1001.C. Sandra Pro 2003 stated my Bios as:

Asus A7N8X2.0 Deluxe ACPI Rev 1002 Beta 012
Plug and Play version 1.00
SMbios/DMI Version 2.20

So am I in need of an update? To be honest, I would rather avoid updating
the bios as I have never updated them and cant afford to replace the MB
right now if it all goes pear shaped.

Alternatively, I have been reading the Microsoft knowledge base about SP-1
and changing the registry which I would prefer as I can always re-install
Xp if it goes wrong. Would the reg fix work without a bios update?

I understand that I cant have just the one partition on the HD as I wont be
able to have a partition larger than 137GB but I partition my HDs any way
so that will suit me well.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Partition sizes are a limitation of the O/S.Drive sizes are a
limitation of the hardware.If the full size of the drive is not seen
by the BIOS then partitioning the drive will make no difference.There
is an update for WinXP to be able to see and partition above 137 gig
but this will not defeat a hardware limitation.Hardware limitations
can be defeated in some cases by a BIOS update but if not then a
Controller card and as a last resort as DDO(Dynamic Disk Overlay)
program usually freely available from the drive maker's site if not
already supplied with the drive.
More info here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/hard.html

If there is a BIOS update and you wish to flash the BIOS then find the
correct flash program and BIOS .rom file and I'll make you a bootable
CDR/W .ISO image which is a more secure way of flashing the BIOS than
the older and less robust floppy disks.This presumes you have a CDR/W
drive.




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