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Windows XP, and 48-bit LBA for large harddrives

13 May 04

This applies to pre-SP2 windows xp and greater than 137gig harddrive. Anyway, couple of friends had a problem with their SP1 version of xp. It turned out that 48bit LBA isnt turned on as you would hope. so both of them lost all their data (although only temporarily… they had to use a undeleted files, etc., recovery tool to get the files back). Looking through this Microsoft link, it turns out that xp did not have the latest version of Atapi.sys, although the site says that installnig SP1 will install this. I searched on my laptop & desktop and both were SP1, but again had an older version of Atapi.sys. I haven’t reformated my 250 gig harddrive (which is only 20 % full) after getting the latest version. Just to be safe, i am planning on moving/backing up all of my data off of this drive, and then format it. Eventually.

Comment

  1. Hey..i still have older file on my pc. :(. i.e. even after the SP2
    My current version is 5.1.2600.1106 after SP2.
    Article that you pointed out says that..

    If Atapi.sys is not version 5.1.2600.1135 (or version 5.1.2600.1152 for Windows XP 64-Bit Edition), obtain and install the hotfix that is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 331958.
    =
    Any suggestion? TIA. – Bob.
    bob    Sat Dec 4th, 4:25pm    #
  2. Did you install the Hotfix? There is a link to download that hotfix on that page, i believe. Strange though, it should already come with SP2.
    Imran    Wed Dec 8th, 1:01am    #

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