Hard drive size

[zver]

Hi guys..Tomonrow is a sunday and im gonna go to buy a hard drive and dvd writer.And while i was checking the prices just a few minuts ago,i saw that for hard drives bigger then 125 gb i need a some special controller card;and without that even if i buy a 200gb drive it will show a 125???is that trye??Is that card included usually in a drive price or its a separate cost???Couse in that case im gonna rather buy either 125g,or two hds...So if somebody bought recently hd around 130gb or bigger please let me know about that controller and do i really need that(also did it came with a drive or its a separate buy)???..
Thanks in advance!!
Thats for a win-xp sp1,P-4 2.53ghz,533bus.....

 

[AZImmortal]

this link should answer your questions (and can state the solutions better than i can). although part of the solution is maxtor-specific, the general principles apply to all large capacity drives. my maxtor 160gb came with a controller card thrown in for free, but i don't think they sell them as a combo anymore.

 

[VIPER_1069]

Reading that artical AZImmortal posted zver if you cannot get the hardware and its a MAXTOR then there are two pretty simple software fixes that solve this

Installation Option 1. Upgrade the operating system to either Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 (or newer) or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (or newer) and download the Maxtor Big Drive Enabler software patch. The Maxtor Big Drive Enabler, once executed, will update the Windows registry for large drive support.

Installation Option 2. Download and install the Intel Application accelerator. The Intel Application Accelerator provides 48-Bit LBA compliant ATA/ATAPI controller drivers (IntelATA.mpd) and replaces the Windows 98/Me, 2000 and XP ATA controller drivers (ESDI_506.PDR). Intel is the only chipset manufacturer that we are aware of that offers a compatible controller driver for Windows .

The Intel Application Accelerator only supports the following chipsets: 810, 810E, 810E2, 810L, 815, 815EP, 815G, 815EG, 815P, 820, 820E, 840, 845, 845E, 845G, 845GE, 845GL, 845GV, 845PE, 850, 850E, 860. The Intel Application Accelerator can be obtained at http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/. If you have an unsupported chipset or do not want to upgrade the operating system then try the next solution.

this also prolly explains why one puter store in my town were offering a bargain deal on 180gb drives but had no really good explanation as to why they were around the same price as a 120gb drive !?

I ended up gettin an 80gb a couple of days ago as i recently needed to change over to DDR so bought ddr at the same time ...only to later find it was corrupt ADSL drivers reporting back the same errors and blue screens that bad memory shows up bleh

 

[FortiTude]

i recently bought a 160gb maxtor drive and it's attached to the onboard silicon image 3112 sata raid controler of my asus a7n8x deluxe
im on win2k sp4
im not sure if i used that big drive enabler, perhaps the sata drivers did that ....
if you know the reg key i can check if its applied ...
i didnt install windows on that drive, its just for my data
windows disk management reports 152.66 GB, its partitioned to 122 and 30 gigs ...
forti

edit: just found the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters
reg_dword: enablebiglba = 1
it's not present on my system and it looks like this key is only valid for ata drives not sata ...

 

[serjer]

y not try a WD?

 

[zver]

Just bought a maxtor 160gb
Didnt even buy a dvd...
I dont know,im just not sure about all those things like formsats and such???
Anyway,,thanks a lot guys,off to install the beast

 

[serjer]

n don't forget 2 fit a fan on it,if u ain't in an air con room