In news:hs4e1s$p2l$1@news.eternal-september.org,
Barry Watzman typed on Sat, 08 May 2010 15:28:57 -0400:
> Partitioning is not an answer to the 48-bit LBA issue, at least not if
> you were trying to say that he could then use the rest of the drive
> (beyond 137G in another partition.
Yes this is what I was saying.
> This limitation is partially hardware; to address more than 137GB
> (what partition it's in notwithstanding and being irrelevant), the
> IDE port has to communicate an LBA sector address of more than 48
> bits. Some of them cannot do that. The ***HARDWARE*** cannot do it,
> PERIOD. It has 48 bit registers in the IDE controller, and it just
> will not be able to deal with any part of a drive beyond 137GB. And,
> what's worse, if it tries to, the I/O request will "wrap around",
> back to the start of the drive, and, likely, will "clobber" the MBR
> and partition tables, which is catastrophic.
Well that could be I suppose. But all of the ones I have seen was
limited by the BIOS alone. The hardware itself could see the whole thing
(larger than 137G
just fine. Once a Windows boots that supports 48-bit
LBA, if the hardware (aka controller) couldn't handle it. I would think
that Windows couldn't see the whole drive either. But I could be wrong.
If the BIOS is the only problem. I am sure it is okay just using the
boot/system on a partition in the first 137GB works just fine. As I have
done this many times without a problem. And I have done this with
computers made in 2000 and later. And once the OS boots, it can see the
rest of it without any problems on another partition(s).
I have a couple of Toshiba 2595XDVD from '99 right here. They came with
6GB HDD and I never had anything larger than 60GB in them. And if I
remember right, the 48-bit LBA started in 2002. But I would be more than
happy to throw a spare 160GB HDD in there and report what happens if you
would like.
Those Toshiba 2595XDVD doesn't run Windows 2000/XP very well (they came
with Windows 98FE). Since they are limited to 192MB max memory anyway
(64GB on the motherboard and a 128MB max memory card). Although anything
that can run Windows 2000/XP well enough, I don't think you should have
a problem with the controller. And you need Windows 2000/XP at least to
support 48-bit LBA or the Windows OS can't see it anyway. See what I
mean?
> [If, on the other hand, you are proposing that he only use the 1st
> 137GB and not use the rest at all ... then sure, that will work.]
Well I wasn't really thinking that way. Although the price between a
120GB HDD and a 160GB is almost the same price. So why not go with the
160GB instead? And in some cases, the 160GB might be cheaper anyway.
> On a desktop, there is another option ... use a controller other than
> the one on the motherboard that supports larger drives. For example a
> PCI controller. Or even a SCSI or USB or Firewire controller. The
> problem is that not all motherboards can boot from such devices and,
> in any case, it's usually not an option for a laptop.
Yes this is true in many cases.
--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3