Re: 137GB barrier - multi O/S install problem

Peter wrote: 
I recently managed to scrape enough pennies to rebuild my lightning-bit
workstation. Motherboard ECS KM400-M2 (rev 3.0) HD wd1600JB, 160gb.



Your MB should support EIDE disks up to 400GB, so that is fine.
Make sure BIOS settings are AUTO.


From the ECS website - when I look under HDD support, the board
revision 1.0 shows support for 400GB - true - but I have the
rev 3.0 board - which under hdd support just gives a blank, and
under BIOS revisions shows only 1.0 - The BIOS setting is currently
AUTO, but setting it to LBA still gives the results in the original
post, C/H/S is 65535/16/255 - which is only (about) 137GB.


I created a small NTFS partition (8gb) for Win2k, 


Here is a problem. Install proper W2K Service Pack and perform registry
changes to support 48bit-LBA.
Reboot and check in Windows 2000 again.



I have a single disk. Win2k HAS to create a partition before it can
install - which it does under the (probably) 24-bit LBA that my
BIOS is apparently providing. This is a chicken and egg problem.
At any rate, requirement #1 on the Microsoft Knowledge base
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q305098)
says:
"A computer with a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS) installed."
If I had 48-bit LBA, wouldn't it show a geometry in the BIOS setup
that reflects a 160GB drive instead of a 137GB drive?

Cheers,

Conrad





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