How to ensure that LBA48 is enabled?

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Mark Levy - 29 Mar 2005 19:10 GMT

Hi All,

As someone who was once "biten" by the "Rollover bug," how do I ensure that
LBA-48 is enabled, ensuring that there will be no problem with drives
greater than 137GB.

I once lost 137GB of VirtualPC disk images because of this "issue."

I did a fresh install of WinXP SP2, from a pre-patched CD. But is there a
certain registry key I should check to be sure that it's enabled? I don't
want to lose another 137GB of disk images.

Thanks,

Mark

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Abhilash Tibrewal - 29 Mar 2005 20:51 GMT

Windows XP SP1 and above automatically support large (>137GB) hard disks, so
there is no cause for concern. You can check this key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters\

The EnableBigLba registry value should be 1

This article will help you:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B303013

----
Abhilash Tibrewal

> Hi All,
>
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Mark

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Anna - 29 Mar 2005 21:11 GMT

>> Hi All,
>>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>>
>> Mark

> Windows XP SP1 and above automatically support large (>137GB) hard disks,
> so there is no cause for concern. You can check this key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters\

> The EnableBigLba registry value should be 1
> This article will help you:
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B303013
> ----
> Abhilash Tibrewal

Mark:
Assuming your motherboard's BIOS supports large-drive capability, i.e.,
drives > 137 GB, and your XP OS includes SP2 (or SP1), your system will
recognize the full capacity of those large capacity drives.

There's really no registry key to check. The registry key that Abhilash
mentions is *not* present in XP SP2 (or SP1) versions. It was present in the
original release of XP so that a user could modify its value to achieve
large-capacity hard drive capability for testing, and *only* testing
purposes. It's of no relevance now.

Bottom line - rest assured that the full capacity your large-capacity disk
will be recognized as long as you have BIOS capability and your XP
installation contains SP1 and/or SP2.
Anna

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Abhilash Tibrewal\(MCSA\) - 31 Mar 2005 16:03 GMT

>>> Hi All,
>>>
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
> installation contains SP1 and/or SP2.
> Anna

Thanks for correcting my "theoritical" information Anna, there is no such
key in Sp1/2 :)

----
Abhilash Tibrewal

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Andy - 30 Mar 2005 05:45 GMT

Run Disk Management. Look at the panel that shows the graphic
representation of the partitions on the disk. The left side of the
panel shows the size of each disk. If the size is correct, the
operating system is correctly accessing the drive.

>Hi All,
>
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
>Mark

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