SwiftTec FAQ: Windows 2000 limits large hard disks to 128GB

Problem

You have installed a hard disk larger than 128GB on a Windows 2000 machine but can only address the first 128GB of the disk,

Solution

The following assumes that your hardware supports the drive size you are using. By default, Windows 2000 does not support drives larger than 128GB. If your drive is larger that 128GB it will simply recognize it as a 128GB hard drive. To fix this use regedit to add/edit the following registry key.

Registry Location	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters
Parameter	EnableBigLba
Type	DWORD
Value	1

Once you have created/set this value then restart the computer and Windows should now correctly recognise your large drive.