Allow to use large capacity hard drives under Windows

Do you have large capacity hard drives? You will have probably noticed that under Windows XP that doesn’t have either SP1 or SP2 installed that it will not be able to recognise a size superior then 137 GB. If you don’t want to install SP2, for example on a production computer, then there is a solution to be able to get around this limitation.

This tip is also valid for Windows 2000 that is running service packs that are anterior to version 3.

Start the Windows XP registry by clicking the “Start” button to the bottom left of your desktop. Next click on the “Run”, in the field type “regedit” and click on the OK button.

Once you are in the registry editor go to the following location in the tree:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters\

A new entry will become visible and you will need to change its name and value. The name can be changed by right clicking on it and selecting “Rename” from the drop down menu that appears. To change the value you will need to select “Edit” from the same menu. You will need to name the key “EnableBigLba” and give this a value of “1”.

Changing the DWORD value to 1

After having created this key and rebooted your computer the change will take effect and you will be able to address logical blocks of 48 bits, as specified in the Atapiv6 standard.

If you don’t want to manually change your registry as you are afraid of making an error you can download these registry files that will perform the change for you (you simply need to double click on them).


Activate the use of hard drive that are greater then 137 GB

Desactivate the use of hard drives that are greater then 137 GB