Dimension XPS T800r - support 48-bit LBA?

Question

Does this model of hardware support 48-bit LBA addressing? I plugged in a 160 GB harddrive and it's only reporting 128 GB.  I upgraded the BIOS to A11, running on XP SP2.  If I plug it into an external drive casing, it shows the 148.1 GB.   Thanks in advance for any info.

JoelisGod · Answer

Thanks for the quick response...I guess I should have added that I have an ATA Card, but I think it's 66, not 100.  Will that work, or does it have to be a 100?

volcano11 · Answer

There is no version of the BIOS that will support a drive greater than 137 Gb on your system. In order to use a larger drive you will have to install a PCI ATA/100 Controller card and attach the drive to that. The controller card will come with software to load BIOS extensions that will enable your computer to see the full capacity of the larger drive.

Steve

volcano11 · Answer

In addition to providing support for the larger drive, the card will also run at the faster ATA 100 speed rather than the ATA 66 speed of your onboard IDE bus. Steve

Majestic · Answer

'....I guess I should have added that I have an ATA Card, but I think it's 66, not 100.  Will that work, or does it have to be a 100?'   None of the ATA-66 cards offered large hard drive support with 48-bit LBA addressing that I am aware of.  The ATA-100 cards definitely do.  Some of the earlier Promise ATA-100 cards were shipped without  48-bit LBA addressing enabled and required a simple firmware update to support the larger hard drives.  No big problem. With the XPS T model the Promise brand of controller cards are the least troublesome to install.  Message Edited by Majestic on 10-18-2005 06:30 AM

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Dimension XPS T800r - support 48-bit LBA?

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