LBA Support on Dell Inspiron 710m laptop for USB through BIOS

Question

I have an Inspiron 710m laptop.

I have a USB Enclosure (also has 1394 IEEE firewire support) that I've successfully used for years on a Windows 2000 (Win2K) desktop after I enabled LBA support in the operating system ( http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305098).

I am running Windows XP (WinXP) service pack 2 (SP2) which has LBA support out-of-the-box. However my Inspiron 710m cannot make sense of a 160GB HDD in the enclosure when attached via USB.

My Inspiron 710m CAN make sense of a 15GB HDD in the enclosure when attached via USB.

So I took my enclosure back to my Win2K machine and, sure enough, can still read my 160GB via USB!

It looks as though the Inspiron 710m may not have support for LBA in the BIOS? Does anyone have a definitive answer on this? There are no options in the Inspiron 710m BIOS for LBA.

How can I get my enclosure working with >128GB HDDs on my Dell?

bacillus · Answer

does the enclosure have an external power supply?

timer16 · Answer

yes, of course it does..

jackshack · Answer

You may simply need to enable support for drives over 137 GB. You must be running Windows XP with at least service pack 1 in order to use this (if this is the problem). See this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

Good luck!

timer16 · Answer

Thankyou JackShack. If you read the article you referenced closely you will see the following line:

Note The previous registry setting is ignored in Windows XP SP1 and later.

The article explains that Windows XP SP1 and above have LBA support enabled (no registry keys control this).

timer16 · Answer

Actually just to let everyone know, I got a phone call from Dell Support last night, and they were polite and thoughtful and asked me about the make and model of the enclosure ( "New Motion" N1106 [google search]).

They explained to me that, due to the newness of the model (Inspiron 710m), they presently have no data to confirm whether large HDDs through USB enclosures are supported, although it should in theory support LBA.

So I guess the question for everybody is: has anyone with an Inspiron 710m successfully used a >128GB HDD in a USB or firewire enclosure?

jutah2 · Answer

I just received my new 710m last night. I spent a few hours removing all the superfluous software dell insists on putting an all there machines and tweaking it to my satisfaction. I then plugged my 300gb Maxtor external HDD that I use for desktop storage into the 710m via the firewire port so I could transfer some video files over. The 300 gb maxtor was recognized almost instantly and files were moved with no problem. I didn't try via the usb as I've had issues connecting the HD to my desktop via usb. Anyway it works fine via the firewire port on the 710 m. Hope that helps. Good Luck!!

timer16 · Answer

OK that's great to hear.. I wonder what version of the BIOS you're using? I'm on A06. I understand that A07 is available to download but it seems to be a very minor revision from the comments associated with it.

My enclosure is a combo - does firewire and USB - and have identical issues with firewire. And yet I have no trouble with USB and my enclosure on my desktop.

My desktop is a custom-assembled Gigabyte-motherboard Pentium 4 (I think). Perhaps there are some compatibility issues between different enclosure types and computers? Anyone else have a report of successfully using a USB (or firewire) enclosure with a Dell Inspiron 710m with the hard disk drive (HDD) being bigger than 128GB?

timer16 · Answer

OK so the Dell guys called me and said it worked with their USB enclosure (a HDD >120GB). So I agree to buy another enclosure and try that out.

Guess what!

The new enclosure (Zynet 3.5" HD-D2-U2FW-TW) doesn't work with big hard drives either (same problem, drive is reported, but size isn't and no partitions are found).

I even flashed my BIOS to A07.. what is going on here???

timer16 · Answer

OK.. I'm about to try something.

This article appears to discuss this very issue.. Microsoft (or Dell) deliberately set up laptops not to support dynamic disks.

How frustrating! Dell support didn't even know about this..

Check out this microsoft support article for details.. grr and all this time I thought it was an LBA issue.

The recommended fix is to go into the registry and set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dmload\Start to zero (from 4 on my laptop).. I'm about to try this now and will report back.

timer16 · Answer

Microsoft and Dell deliberately and secretly disable dynamic disk support on Windows XP Professional for laptops! Betcha didn't know that.. turns out Dell Support doesn't know that either!

Microsoft detail this deliberate sabotage in the following article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232463/EN-US

The fix, on my Inspiron 710m, is to change the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dmload\Start to 0 (zero) from the number 4 (four) as it was before on my laptop.

A reboot is required after the registry change is made.

The process of discovery was documented in this forum thread on the internet. The author of this thread modified more registry values than I did (I just modified the one I discussed above) which may be unnecessary.

I came about to discovering this thread by using the Microsoft diskpart.exe tool that can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/. When attempting to import the disk using this command line tool I received the following message: Dynamic disks not supported on this system

Other Microsoft articles that may be of interest (and also potentially technically incorrect - be careful what you believe when you read): System or Boot Disk Listed as Dynamic Unreadable in Disk Management Dynamic Disk Hardware Limitations

timer16 · Answer

Success!!!!! I can now view my external HDD (and the dynamic disk volumes on it).

Locked Topics – Laptops General

LBA Support on Dell Inspiron 710m laptop for USB through BIOS

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