LBA problem with old Dell

Hi.

I have an "old" Dell Dimension XPS T450 with latest (I believe) BIOS A11.

Is this BIOS/computer with Win2000 SP3 able to deal with large harddisks
(+128 GB)?

Thanks!

--
Georges

Highly unlikely without a PCI card.

The Dimension 8100 couldn't and it's much, much newer.

Tom
"Georges Heinesch" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi.
>
> I have an "old" Dell Dimension XPS T450 with latest (I believe) BIOS A11.
>
> Is this BIOS/computer with Win2000 SP3 able to deal with large harddisks
> (+128 GB)?
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Georges

The XPS T450 uses an Intel-made SE440BX board, or minor variation thereof.
Motherboards with the 440BX chipset most often have BIOS limits of 32GB, as does
the generic retail SE440BX direct from Intel. Adding a PCI disk controller card
is the best solution, far better than the "drive overlay" software which fools
the operating system with modified boot block and partition data... Ben Myers

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:23:17 -0400, "Tom Scales" <> wrote:

>Highly unlikely without a PCI card.
>
>The Dimension 8100 couldn't and it's much, much newer.
>
>Tom
>"Georges Heinesch" <> wrote in message
>news:...
>> Hi.
>>
>> I have an "old" Dell Dimension XPS T450 with latest (I believe) BIOS A11.
>>
>> Is this BIOS/computer with Win2000 SP3 able to deal with large harddisks
>> (+128 GB)?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> --
>> Georges
>
>

With the XPS T and BIOS version A11 you can install up to a 137 gig
drive. Anything over that would require an ATA Controller card. A
side benefit of the controller card is that the motherboard controller
is only ATA-33 so a card would boost your transfer speeds of data to
and from the drive.

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:59:51 +0200, Georges Heinesch
<> wrote:

>Hi.
>
>I have an "old" Dell Dimension XPS T450 with latest (I believe) BIOS A11.
>
>Is this BIOS/computer with Win2000 SP3 able to deal with large harddisks
>(+128 GB)?
>
>Thanks!

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:23:17 -0400, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Tom Scales"
<> wrote:

>Highly unlikely without a PCI card.
>
>The Dimension 8100 couldn't and it's much, much newer.

Note that my Dim 8100 handles a 160 GB _external_ USB 2.0 drive without
problems; this is with WinXP and NTFS, using the Maxtor driver software that
came with the drive.

--
Nick <private.php?do=newpm&u=>

External USB support is a whole 'nother deal compared to what a motherboard BIOS
will support. I'd be more impressed if the 8100 could boot from a 160GB
external USB drive. THAT would be something.

Of course, we're mostly talking Windows here. Linux is smart enough to
recognize and use an IDE/ATAPI drive regardless of the BIOS limitations and the
capacity of the drive... Ben Myers

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:26:09 GMT, Nick <> wrote:

>
>On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:23:17 -0400, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Tom Scales"
><> wrote:
>
>>Highly unlikely without a PCI card.
>>
>>The Dimension 8100 couldn't and it's much, much newer.
>
>Note that my Dim 8100 handles a 160 GB _external_ USB 2.0 drive without
>problems; this is with WinXP and NTFS, using the Maxtor driver software that
>came with the drive.
>
>--
>Nick <private.php?do=newpm&u=>

Thanks for the confirmation!

Georges

--

-Stephen- wrote:
> With the XPS T and BIOS version A11 you can install up to a 137 gig
> drive. Anything over that would require an ATA Controller card. A
> side benefit of the controller card is that the motherboard controller
> is only ATA-33 so a card would boost your transfer speeds of data to
> and from the drive.
>
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:59:51 +0200, Georges Heinesch
> <> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi.
>>
>>I have an "old" Dell Dimension XPS T450 with latest (I believe) BIOS A11.
>>
>>Is this BIOS/computer with Win2000 SP3 able to deal with large harddisks
>>(+128 GB)?
>>
>>Thanks!

With the 8100 model, any BIOS version after A07 added 48-bit LBA
support for large IDE drives. If the BIOS version installed is higher
than that then there is no BIOS limitation concerning the hard drive
size.


On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:26:09 GMT, Nick <> wrote:

>
>On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:23:17 -0400, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Tom Scales"
><> wrote:
>
>>Highly unlikely without a PCI card.
>>
>>The Dimension 8100 couldn't and it's much, much newer.
>
>Note that my Dim 8100 handles a 160 GB _external_ USB 2.0 drive without
>problems; this is with WinXP and NTFS, using the Maxtor driver software that
>came with the drive.