Installing XP into a 50gB Partition (non 48 bit LBA bios)

[Green Isaac]

Hi there. Sorry to ask what I think is probably a very stupid question but I have been seeing so many conflicting bits of advice regarding this issue and I am still confused with what should be a simple yes or no answer.

I have installed a new Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB U133 16MB hard drive on an HP Pavilion 7929 as the only hard drive in the system. As the bios appears not to be LBA 48-bit compliant (the disc drive only showed up as 80Gb in the bios screen and there are no bios updates on the HP site) I performed a clean installation using a new XP sp2 disc in a 50Gb partition created using Western Digital’s Data Lifeguard Tools.

Once XP was installed I created a second partition Using XP's disc management tools) for the remaining space (aprox 430Gb) which I will use for storage and installing programs.

Looking at this quote in your very useful guide at the top of the forum

“W2K SP4, WinXP SP1, Linux
You won't need native Bios support if you have Windows2000 SP4, Windows XP SP1 or Linux with a somewhat recent kernel (2.4.18 upwards). Install your OS into a partition within Bios limits and allocate space above Bios limits within the OS”

suggests that what I have done is fine and I shouldn’t come across any problems but other people are telling me I should install Intel Accelerator (the mother board uses an Intel 815 chipset,) Maxtor Big Drive Enabler or even a separate PC ATA Controller card.

Is there any risk with what I have done and am I likely to run into any problems when the two partitions fill up beyond the 137Gb level? Is there any reason to install anything else?

Any opinions greatly received.

[cp]

no need to install anything else. those tools are only for operating systems that do not support LBA48 out of the box (like Windows 95/98/ME/whatever).
the intel accelerator could however speed up ide transfers IF the southbridge isn't correctly set up by the bios or the OS included drivers.

[Green Isaac]

Thanks cp. That has set my mind at rest.

There does seem to be conflicting information and it's so good to find this useful resource.

Thanks again.