48bitLBA.com - Issues

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Bios Upgrades

Major Issues With 48-bit LBA Technology

With 48-bit LBA technology disk drives can now be built with capacities greater than 137 GB. The 48-bit LBA enhancement to the ATA interface means system software can now access data beyond the 137 GB limit. Because 48-bit LBA is an enhancement to the ATA interface specification, any system software that needs to access these 48-bit LBA hard drives must be modified to support 48-bit LBA enhancements to the ATA interface specification. Two major classes of system software that are affected by 48-bit LBA are the BIOS and operating system. The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) is firmware on the system's motherboard which tests and initializes basic chipset hardware and boots the operating system such as Windows XP.

If you are installing a new 48-bit LBA hard drive on your system you may need to upgrade your system BIOS and/or your operating system depending upon how you are installing the drive on your system and what operating system you are using. You will need to pay attention to whether you are installing the hard drive with a new operating system which will boot from the drive or simply adding it as an additional drive to an existing system for extra storage capacity. Regarding the operating system some versions of Microsoft Windows do not support 48-bit LBA drives at all where some do but only if you install the latest Service Pack.

For more information, choose your operating system from the list below.

Windows Xp

Windows 2000

Windows 98, 98 SE, & Me

Windows 95

For more information about issues with hard disk partitioning applications and 48-bit LBA:

Partition Tools and 48-bit LBA

For more information about issues with 48-bit LBA and external PCI IDE controllers:

PCI IDE controllers and 48-bit LBA

For more information about EnableBigLba registry value in Windows:

EnableBigLba registry value in Windows 2000 and XP

For more information involving USB hard drives greater than 137 GB:

USB hard drives and 48-bit LBA

For more information involving serial ATA (SATA) hard drives greater than 137 GB:

SATA hard drives and 48-bit LBA

HDINFO
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