how can I tell if my laptop supports 48-bit LBA?

[maxwelltf]

I am upgrading my laptop (Dell C640) hard drive. How can I tell if it supports 48-bit LBA or drives larger than 137GB? It is at the latest BIOS (A10) but the dell site doesnt have much info on 48-LBA. Is there another way? Could I plug a larger drive (I have a 160GB drive) in and see what the BIOS says? I just don't want to corrupt any of the boot sectors, etc on the larger drive.

[DanG]

How old is the laptop?

[maxwelltf]

hard to say, it's a Dell C640. I would guess it was made around 2003 or 2004.

[maxwelltf]

C640 first came out in 2003.

[troll]

Sounds like it does not...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=308985 Message #4

[maxwelltf]

Troll - thanks. I read that thread and there was a comment at the end that piqued my curiosity - they guy said "get a drive less than 137GB or partition the drive". Why couldn't I just use my 160GB drive and partition it? Something like 100Gb and 60GB. Now if I could just figure out how to set up those partitions. Can you point me in the right direction?

[Snarkasm]

You can set up partitions with a bootable version of GParted. Put it on a flash drive or CD, boot it up, create some partitions, and install Windows to your liking.

[foolkiller]

You can also grab the overlay software from that drive manufacturer. Sure, it is a real pain in the ass at times, but it will let you use any size drive with just the addition of a little MBR boot loader to translate it for you. A warning though, they are a cludge. They work, but they can make installing an OS a real pain, and in some cases, they are incredibly difficult to remove without effort.

[maxwelltf]

You can set up partitions with a bootable version of GParted. Put it on a flash drive or CD, boot it up, create some partitions, and install Windows to your liking.

OK - maybe I dont know what the heck I am doing, but using a GParted boot CD I thought I was making 2 partitions on the 160GB drive: one 100GB partition, and one 60GB. Both of them were Primary, both NTFS, the first one had the boot flag set. Everything seemed OK when exiting Gparted. Rebooting and my bios screen still shows one 127GB drive. Weird? Also, running the ultimate boot disk and some partition tools on their all seem to indicate a) file systems are not supported and b) addresses are out of range or something like that.

Am I doing it wrong? Sorta seems like I'm not getting around the LBA problem.
Nothing is ever simple, eh?

[Thrax]

Both the BIOS and the OS must support 48-bit LBA. Your PC does not have a 48-bit ATA interface.

[maxwelltf]

Both the BIOS and the OS must support 48-bit LBA. Your PC does not have a 48-bit ATA interface.

OK, so even if I partition the drive into partitions that are less than 127GB, it still won't work?

[Thrax]

If the BIOS does not recognize drives above the 127GB limit, that's correct.

[maxwelltf]

If the BIOS does not recognize drives above the 127GB limit, that's correct.

Dang, I must have misread Snarkasm's post since I thought that was the point behind partitioning. Oh well.

[Thrax]

There is, but only if the operating system is the only piece of the equation that doesn't support 48-bit LBA.

If the OS doesn't recognize >127GB drives, but the system does, you can partition the HDD out so no partition is bigger than 127GB. You can then make use of your entire drive's capacity, it's just divided a little bit. But in cases where BIOS doesn't support 48-bit LBA, you're straight ****ed. :/

[maxwelltf]

There is, but only if the operating system is the only piece of the equation that doesn't support 48-bit LBA.

If the OS doesn't recognize >127GB drives, but the system does, you can partition the HDD out so no partition is bigger than 127GB. You can then make use of your entire drive's capacity, it's just divided a little bit. But in cases where BIOS doesn't support 48-bit LBA, you're straight ****ed. :/

Got it. OK - onto to ebay to find a 120GB drive. Thanks for the help Thrax.