Specifications
Windows 137GB Capacity Barrier Version 1.0
10 7-Mar-2003
Microsoft Knowledgebase article Q331958:"Hard Disk May Become Corrupted When Entering
Standby or Hibernation" at support.microsoft.com.
New system consideration
– If your system BIOS sees the full capacity of the drive and your
Windows XP CD says "… Including Service Pack 1" you are completely ready to utilize ATA
interface disc drives greater than 137GB. If your BIOS is not up to the task you can apply a BIOS
update or use Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition and the DDO described above.
If your Windows XP CD does not indicate SP1, then your boot drive partition will have a
maximum size of 137GB. After the OS and SP1 are installed, any additional gigabytes will show
up as unallocated space on the drive and you can easily create a second partition with
DiscWizard 2003 or the Windows disk management tools. Also, if you prefer to have a single
partition, third party applications such as Partition Commander from VCom or Partition Magic
from Powerquest may be able to stretch the partition to annex the newly found capacity.
Microsoft does provide a method of merging the Service Pack into an older copy of Windows XP.
This process is called "Slipstreaming" and is very complicated. This process requires that you be
able to burn a new Windows XP OS installation CD. You can search the Internet for
"slipstreaming Windows XP" to find instructions on this process. Seagate does not assist in
preparing slipstream installation CDs.
Adding a drive to an existing system
– If Windows XP is already up and running then check
MyComputer Properties to determine if your version has SP1. If not, you should install the
Service Pack before working with the new hard drive. If SP1 is installed and the Disk
Administrator tools show 137GB on your new drive, then EnableBigLBA is not yet on.
Seagate's DiscWizard 2003 disc installation software for Windows is designed to make adding a
new drive to a system as easy as possible. For your convenience, Seagate's DiscWizard
installation software can set the EnableBigLBA bit in the registry and prepare the drive to full
capacity if service pack support is active in the operating system. Windows XP may require re-
registration of the operating system if the boot device is changed after the original installation.
2. Windows XP on a PCI controller card
Controller cards support ATA interface disc drives through onboard BIOS and custom Windows
device drivers. These storage controller cards are plug-and-play compatible and usually detected
in the Windows Device Manager as "mass storage controller" or as "SCSI controllers" due to the
similarity in disc access command structure. Since the drives are supported by drivers that
emulate the SCSI driver approach, the native Windows 137GB ATA limitation does not apply
since those drivers are not in use.
Companies which are known to manufacture ATA controller cards that support drives greater
than 137GB are SIIG, Inc (http://www.siig.com
), Promise Technology, Inc.
(http://www.promise.com
), HighPoint Technologies, Inc. (http://www.highpoint-tech.com) and
ACARD Technology (http://www.acard.com
).
If your disc drives are recognized by the controller BIOS when the system is first powered on but
later the drives are not seen by Windows then the device drivers for the controller card need to be
installed. See your controller card documentation for direction.
As a matter of system maintenance, Microsoft recommends that you keep your system updated
with the latest Windows XP Service Pack. See Microsoft Knowledgebase article Q322389:"How
to Obtain the Latest Windows XP Service Pack" at support.microsoft.com.