BIOS Updates forum

In order to support 160 GB drives, I recently updated my bios to GB85010A.86A.0048.p17.
This update, however did not fully solve the problem: The 160GB drive still only shows as 128GB.
I understand that I need to enable an "48-bit LBA addressing option" in the bios but I can't find where that would be set. One Intel FAQ mentions changing the 'Configuration Mode' from "Auto" to "Manual or User definable" which should then allow me to change the IDE translation mode. The problem is, I can't find a "configuration mode" setting either - the closest thing is is a section called "IDE configuration" which has sub-sections for each drive. Once you choose the appropriate drive, however, there is nothing that can be changed to 48-bit LBA mode.

Maxtor, on their site, recommends downloading an "Intel Application Accelerator". Intel's site states that this Application Accelerator supports their 850 chipset but does NOT list 850GB as a supported chipset. (It was Intel who pointed out I needed to enable that 48-bit LBA addressing mode. Unfortunately they didn't tell me how to do it and they don't answer my emails)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The i850 chipset is supported.
D850GB is BOARD model, not chipset. It uses i850 chipset.

What is Intel® Application Accelerator?
Intel® Application Accelerator (IAA) is designed to take advantage of devices supporting ATA DMA/Ultra DMA technologies, improve system performance, and includes:
Faster Boot Time via Accelerated Operating System Load Time
Accelerated Disk I/O for Games, Graphics Applications, Disk Utilities, and Media Authoring Applications
Performance-enhancing data caching for Intel® Pentium® 4 processor-based systems
Support for 137GB and larger hard drives

Huh. Sounds like Drive Overlay software to me. I'd buy an ATA-133 controller card, myself.

It's not overlay software, it's driver for Windows.

Hm, even worse. That would imply that the drive won't be visible outside of Windows, right? And what if he does a clean install?

P4 board from Intel does not support >128GB? What a crap!

Latest Bios is P18 but support for >128GB not in the update list .

Boy you guys are quick! Do you live in front of your computers?
Anyway: Thanks for the hints!
The Intel WebPage listed an 850 and an 850E chipset that's why I assumed there must be an 850GB too.
I downloaded and installed the Application Accelerator.

I also found two settings in the BIOS that I changed:
Advanced==>IDE Configuration==>Primary IDE Master==>TYPE was changed from "Auto" to "User"
That then enabled me to change LBA MODE CONTROL from "Disbled" to "Enabled"

I don’t know if it was the BIOS changes or the introduction of the Application Accelerator that did the trick but Windows now shows the new drive as having a capacity of 152 GB which goes beyond common current barriers. (I still wonder where the remaining 8 gigs went...)

I have some additional questions you might be able to answer:
1. Were the bios changes I made the proper changes or should I have changed anything else?
2. Was it the bios changes or the introduction of the Application Accelerator that fixed things (in other words: should I be running the Application Accelerator or could I run without it?) - Somehow I can't see a Windows application fixing bios limitations - from your posts, this appears not to be a "clean" solution.
3. The BIOS still shows an incorrect capacity for the drive. Advanced==>IDE Configuration==>Primary IDE Master==> shows the Maximum Capacity as 131071 MB (rather than the 160GB nominal capacity of the drive) How do I get the bios to show the correct capacity? (I had warnings from other applications - notably Maxtor’s drive initialization utility "Maxblast" - that the BIOS does NOT support 160GB drives and data loss could result)

You can't get the BIOS to show the correct capacity. You only have to fool the BIOS that you have a drive you can boot the operating system from, then the drivers will take over handling any calls to Interrupt 13h, cutting the BIOS out of the loop.
Back in the old days I had a 40 Megabyte drive with a gemoetry not supported by the BIOS; you set up the parameters for 32 Mb and made sure the operating system was in the first 32 Mbytes. That loaded a driver which patched the drive tables to allow access to the rest of the drive, but I always partitioned the drive so that the second partition was the extra 8 Mb.

but Windows now shows the new drive as having a capacity of 152 GB which goes beyond common current barriers. (I still wonder where the remaining 8 gigs went...)

Drive manufacturers market 1 Megabyte as 1000000 bytes. In fact a megabyte is 1024 * 1024 bytes.

160000Megabytes/(1024*1024)=152587 true Megabytes....

But if windows is showing the correct size (more or less), why are you messing around with maxblast?