Large hard drive in windows XP

[imported_lamer]

When I install win xp, it only recognizes 130 of my 200 gig seagate ide hard drive. I know the rest of the space is there because dos saw 190 gigs. I've already installed windows xp but I'm missing about 60 gigs. How is it possible to get windows to format it to full capacity or what can I do now to avoid reinstalling the os.

 

[Viper96720]

You need sp1 and motherboard with 48bit lba support.

Then
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters.

2. Add Value Name EnableBigLba, a REG_DWORD data type, and set the data value to 1.

3. Restart Windows XP.

 

[Connoisseur]

Just out of curiousity, why doesn't microsoft just enable 48-bit lba support by default? I'd think this would just make more sense since >130 gb hard drives are very commonplace nowadays. It seems archaic to make the USER have to modify a registry value for such a simple thing as a large HD. Is there any possible disadvantage to enabling lba?

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Just out of curiousity, why doesn't microsoft just enable 48-bit lba support by default? I'd think this would just make more sense since >130 gb hard drives are very commonplace nowadays. It seems archaic to make the USER have to modify a registry value for such a simple thing as a large HD. Is there any possible disadvantage to enabling lba?

XP came out in 2001. >130 gb drives were not commonplace back then.

 

[kranky]

What Microsoft says about 48-bit LBA in Windows XP.

 

[RaymondY]

thanks for the info. thinking about adding a 200gb+ hdd to my WinXP Pro SP2 system over x-mas.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: RaymondY
thanks for the info. thinking about adding a 200gb+ hdd to my WinXP Pro SP2 system over x-mas.

If you have SP2, you don't need to do anything with the registry.

🙂

 

[obeseotron]

Yeah it's on by default in Windows XP SP1 and later. I believe that SP1 is not even necessary, only the updated atapi.sys. If you have an early Windows XP CD and wish to install onto a large hard drive, I believe that you'll need to slipstream SP1 or 2 into the installation files. This is not terribly difficult, google "slipstream windows xp" and you should get plenty of guides to making an updated CD. All you need is the original CD, the full version of the service pack (200MB+ .exe file, normally used for networked installations) and CDR. The whole process shouldn't take more than a half hour including extracting the files and burning the new CD. If you've already formatted 137GB (the old limit) you'll have to format again or make the remaining space a new partition. Partition Magic and other 3rd party programs can merge the partitions without destroying your data.