A7V133 BIOS Update supports 48 Bit LBA for Promise Ultra100 but not RAID (Fasttrak100)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Thompson
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Scott Thompson

I upgraded my A7V133 bios to version 1009 so that the PDC20265R Promise chip
would support drives > 137GB. Here is the strange part. When I jumper the
MB for Ultra100 the BIOS and OS sees my 250GB drives but when the MB is
jumpered for Fasttrak100 the FastBuild Utility says they are 137GB drives.
Any ideas?
 
Hi Frank,
I agree with the first point, that's why I said to use the latest Bios
(Beta 1010.01b).
In this case the build in Promise Bios should be 48-bit LBA enabled, I'm
not sure that's the case even with the new beta Bios.

Ofcourse 48-bit LBA applies to a large hard disk, your second point.

The third point only applies to the O/S used, apparently Windows XP.
May be quite different using another O/S and is no factor when running
the FastBuild Utility.
 
The following conditions are necessary for the correct
functioning of 48-bit LBA ATAPI support:
A computer with a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic
Input/Output
System (BIOS) installed.
A computer with a hard disk that has a capacity of
greater
than 137 gigabytes (GB).
You must enable the support in the Windows registry by
adding or changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1
in
the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ata
pi\Parameters

To enable 48-bit LBA large-disk support in the registry:
Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ata
pi\Parameters
On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the
following registry value:
Value name: EnableBigLba
Data type: REG_DWORD
Value data: 0x1
Quit Registry Editor.
 
What I meant to say is that when you use the seperate Promise chip on
the A7V133 with a very large disk the build in Promise Bios should also
be ready for 48-bit LBA.

As this is a (Lite) Promise FastTrak100 Bios and only the last version
of that Bios supports 48-bit it's very possible the latest A7V133 Bios
is 48-bit enabled but the embedded Promise Bios isn't yet.

Also running the FastBuild utility should detect the correct disk size.
It doesn't matter what is in the Registry because the utility is run
before anything of whatever O/S has been loaded.
 
Hi,
The problem is solved by a registry setting in Windows 2000 as posted
before.
Only XP With SP1 is the first Microsoft OS which supports large >137 GB
disks by default.
 
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