XP can't see but 128GB of my 250GB Western Digital Cavliar SE 48-bit LBA drive mounted in and external enclosure and connected by USB. It will format it but only 128GB of it. The rest is invisible. How do I format the whole disk? The registry DWORD patch is set to "1" already.

Does you BIOS support LBA 48 bit? If not, then there is not a lot you can do about it. You could try to see if there is a BIOS update at the motherboard manufactures web site. Look here for info. Stuart

If you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard and you have at least SP1 (recommend both SP1&2), try Diskpart. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590 0. At a command prompt, type diskpart.exe. 1. Type list volume to display the existing volumes on the computer. 2. Type Select volume volume number where volume number is number of the volume that you want to extend. 3. Type extend [size=n] [disk=n] [noerr] . The following describes the parameters: size=n The space, in megabytes (MB), to add to the current partition. If you do not specify a size, the disk is extended to take up all of the next contiguous unallocated space. disk=n The dynamic disk on which to extend the volume. Space equal to size=n is allocated on the disk. If no disk is specified, the volume is extended on the current disk. noerr For scripting only. When an error is thrown, this parameter specifies that Diskpart continue to process commands as if the error did not occur. Without the noerr parameter, an error causes Diskpart to quit with an error code. 4. Type exit to quit Diskpart.exe. Leadtek sucks BIG TIME

Bill, I would not format that drive as IDE but directly as USB, which means that while it's in the external case, and attached as USB, click on START, right click on MY COMPUTER and select MANAGE. In COMPUTER MANAGEMENT, select Disk Mnagement in the left pane. Now right click on your USB device and delete the current partition and create the full 250 GB one, which is really 232 GB. This way BIOS and LBA 48 bit is NOT a factor even though the format may take longer. Good luck. I - Sandor J Sound judgement, with discernment, is the best of seers. - Euripides (B.C. 480 - 406)

It boils down to... in addition to a standard requirement that you are using XP SP1 or SP2 (SP1 may require additional fiddling to get it to work).... another standard requirement is your motherboard bios and chipset must support 48bit LBA translation. In almost all cases if your motherboard bios doesn't support it, it can't be ungraded to support it because the motherboard chipset doesn't support it either. I don't see how that situation would be any different for a USB connected drive. If this were an IDE (or SATA) drive connected directly to the mboard, this applies...... if they don't support 48bit LBA, the very best thing to do is to get a recent hard drive controller card that has it's own bios - they are relatively cheap nowadays, and if you get one that supports at least the UDMA your new hard drive uses, it will yield faster maximum data tranfer rates if the UDMA the drive is capable of is faster than your onboard IDE. controller. Depending on the one you get, you may or may not be able to still use your onboard IDE for CD/DVD drives or slower or smaller hard drives. In any case, you can check out: - your motherboard manufacturer's or brand name system's site to see if you can find out if your model supports, or can support with a bios upgrade (see the release hotes), 48 bit LBA / hard drives larger than 128gb (in Windows; 137gb manufacturer's size). - your new hard drive manufacturer's site for further information and other alternatives e.g. what is generically called "dynamic translation" software that intervenes between your bios and the hard drive so that you can see and use the full capacity of the drive - it's free, but that's not an option for everyone - you must be very alert as to how you use bootable disks and CD's, or you can easily lose your data. - (for non USB connected drives) hard drive controller manufacturer's sites - look at specs and manuals online, or download manuals to look at. The really cheap controllers may have poor sites, manuals. Read the specs, manuals carefully. The cheapest ones often do not have an onboard bios - your mboard must already support 48 bit LBA with those. e.g. Maxtor makes reasonably priced hard drive controllers, the manuals are okay. ...... In this case, Western Digital's "dynamic translation" software is in Data Lifeguard Tools - here: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

The external enclosure must translate between USB and IDE. If the rom in the enclosure is too old it will be limited to 128 GB. Brand and model of enclosure? Best