Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit,alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (
More info?)
The Microsoft IDE drivers have supported DMA going back to Windows 3.1.
It's off by default, but it's supported. In 3.1, you had to manually
add some lines to System.INI to turn it on. Since Windows 95, it's been
a "check box" burried in device manager, but it's always been there.
The Intel drivers have never been necessary to enable DMA.
While you are correct that Intel supplies the chipset drivers for all
motherboards, for support of IDE drives over 137 gigs, BIOS support is
required, which still comes from the motherboard makers, not Intel.
However, I know of know motherboard made in the past 2 years that
doesn't have this support in recent versions of the bios. In addition
to the chipset drivers and BIOS support, there are three other
requirements: Support in the hard drive itself, Windows XP with SP1
installed, and an entry in the registry that is not present by default,
even with SP1 installed.
Support for large drives over 137 gigs is also available in Windows 2000
with the latest service packs installed and the necessary registry
entries. Such support is not available in any Windows 9X operating
system. However, you can use an OS that doesn't support drives over 137
gigs with such drives as long as you do not try to access any part of
the drive beyond the 137 gig boundary. In my case, my system has a 200
gig drive and is dual boot 98SE/XP. The last partition ("H:") is 80
gigs in size and encompasses all of the portion of the drive beyond 137
gigs, so it's imperative that no attempt be made to write to this
partition from Windows 98SE. However, since that partition is NTFS,
Windows 9x can't see it anyway. The rest of the drive is FAT32.
Paul wrote:
> In article <62pKc.7010$Qu5.6457@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>, "Ray
> Mitchell" <RayMitchell@MeanOldTeacher.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks for the suggestion. However, I tried it with both XP SP1 and W2K
>>SP4. Unless I'm missing something there must be more to it than that. The
>>funny thing is that Intel says it will work if I use their Accelerator
>>application for Windows. However, they also say that the application is
>>only compatible with their older chipsets. Now there's a switch, their new
>>chipsets can't support big drives but their older ones could. Go figure!
>
>
> A point you might be missing, is that, for a given chipset, the drivers
> are provided by the manufacturer of the chipset. So, whether your
> motherboard is made by Asus, Gigabyte, or Abit, they will all be shipping
> the same Intel chipset installer to you. Swapping motherboards won'tThe
> fix anything, if they all have an 865PE/ICH5R on them.
>
> Granted, different motherboards will have different peripherals on them.
> So, if one board had a Via RAID, and another had a Promise RAID chip,
> then sure, swapping boards would get you a different RAID chip with a
> different set of issues. The Via drivers will be written by Via, and the
> Promise drivers by Promise, so again, the manufacturer of the board
> doesn't matter, in terms of driver quality.
>
> As for IAA, there are two entirely different versions. Intel would
> have been smart to come up with another marketing name, so it is
> their loss. IAA, as far as I know, was written back when bus mastering
> was introduced. The Microsoft OS at the time, knew nothing about
> the DMA transfer of disk data, and the inherently higher performance it
> offers. To support the feature until the OS situation improved, Intel
> wrote a driver, to be used to get bus mastering to work. That became
> the Intel Application Accelerator, a driver for a vanilla IDE interface
> that allowed bus mastering to work.
>
> Much time has passed since it was introduced. Now, we have Microsoft
> OSes that have bus master support built in, meaning the default driver
> is every bit as good as IAA from Intel. So, on the one hand, Intel can
> afford to stop supporting IAA, as the market for it is effective zero.
>
> The second thing that happened, is Intel has added RAID to the
> Southbridge. No Microsoft OS knows about such a beast (in hardware),
> so Intel wrote IAAR for the ICH5R Southbridge and WinXP OS. If not
> doing RAID, the ports in question can still be used for stand alone
> disk drives, so all Microsoft OSes can get some use from those ports.
> (That is where the "Enhanced" and "Compatible" settings for the ports
> come into play, in the BIOS. Your choice between the two settings,
> is determined by which OS you plan on using.)
>
> In terms of the Intel drivers, whether IAA/IAAR, you should be using
> the latest one you can find, as earlier versions didn't properly
> support 48bit addressing. In this case, I don't see a need for
> either driver, as you are going to be using this disk as a vanilla
> drive.
>
> In terms of support, here is the official position of Asus:
>
>
http://www.asus.it/support/english/techref/48bithdd/index.aspx
>
> "Model manufactured after 1st January, 2003 will all support
> 48bit HDD (137 GB HDD)."
>
> Manufacturers that use the same chips as Asus, will end up with
> the same level of compatibility (they all rely on the same
> BIOS providers, like Award or AMI).
>
> I wish I could offer you a simple recipe, guaranteed to get the
> job done - perhaps there are better news groups for that than
> this one. I would recommend a WinXP install disk that already
> has SP1 built into it, as if you are trying to install the OS
> on a large disk, that would be the way to go. If the big disk
> is being used as a data only disk, then you could install SP1
> on the boot disk first, then add the big disk and go from there.
>
> If you don't have a WinXP+SP1 install disk, you can make your
> own with an original WinXP disk and a process called
> "slipstreaming". These are some links I was given when the
> topic came up before (thanks, Tim).
>
>
http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/38619/38619.html (slipstream)
>
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8892 (adding drivers?)
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=XP+slipstream+SP1+Drivers
>
> Microsoft's answer is here, now more easy to understand after
> it was rewritten:
>
>
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
>
> This thread seems to suggest you can install the OS on the big
> disk, if the OS is kept below 137GB. Maybe slipstreaming SP1
> or using a WinXP+SP1 install disk removes that limit.
>
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=BACC5DFF.208F6%25simon_liddle%40hotmail.com
>
> Before putting live data on the disk, try copying large test files
> until you get past the 137GB mark. If 48bit support isn't working
> properly, the file system will be corrupted instantly when passing
> that mark. That is due to the modulo rollover of the disk address,
> and the resultant writing near the beginning of the disk, when your
> request meant to write at a 137+ GB location.
>
> My contribution in this post, is to not give up on the motherboard
> you've got - the problems won't get easier by changing motherboards.
> If you want to "dodge the bullet", swap the drive for some smaller
> ones
>
> Paul
>
>
>>
>>"RonK" <imhere@home.net> wrote in message
>>news:wCnKc.56327$RD4.2539019@news20.bellglobal.com...
>>
>>>If you are running XP you need SP1 to use the full size of a hard
>>>drive over 137 gig.
>>>
>>>
>>>"Ray Mitchell" <RayMitchell@MeanOldTeacher.com> wrote in message
>>>news:ePmKc.6864$Qu5.5005@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>>>
>>>>Hello Everyone,
>>>>
>>>>I just purchased an Intel D865PERLL motherboard because I had heard they
>>>>made the most reliable and compatible boards on the market (but
>>>>definitely not the fastest!). However, to my surprise I have
>>>>found that they do not support drives over 137GB, even on the
>>>>SATA-150 channels (unless I'm missing something). So, I will
>>>> return it.
>>>>
>>>>I would like some recommendations from people based upon
>>>>their experiences if you don't mind. I'm not a gamer and the
>>>>most important consideration is stability and compatibility rather
>>>>than blinding speed and tweakability. I already have an Intel P4
>>>>2.8C processor, 2ea. 512MB matched DDR-400s, and a WD 200GB
>>>>SATA-150 HD. The following are my requirements, which I believe
>>>>are fairly standard:
>>>>
>>>>1. Intel chipset - 865 or later
>>>>2. 800MHz FSB
>>>>3. Dual channel DDR-400
>>>>4. BIOS support for 200MB/250MB SATA and ATA drives
>>>>5. 5ea PCI slots
>>>>6. 1ea 4X-8X AGP slot
>>>>7. On board LAN and USB
>>>>
>>>>Of course, I would welcome additional on board peripherals such
>>>>as firewire (but on board video is not a plus for me since I plan
>>>>to use a separate 2-head nVidia AGP card and nVidia PCI video card
>>>>for 3-monitor support).
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for your help,
>>>>Ray Mitchell
>>>>RayMitchell_NOSPAM_@MeanOldTeacher.com
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