Using Intel Application Accelerator under Windows 98SE/ME for LBA48 support on i8xx chipset

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Nokiamies
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Using Intel Application Accelerator under Windows 98SE/ME for LBA48 support on i8xx chipset

Unread post by Nokiamies »

Hello everybody

Here is my experience with Intel Application Accelerator under Windows 9x. It is Intel utility originally meant to enable DMA transfers, but latest 2.3 build also enables software level LBA48 support under supported Intel Chipsets. It is very useful if you got some OEM machine like some Compaq presarios that cannot boot from external controller card or you do not wish to buy controller card. First of all make sure your motherboard chipset supports it. Following chipset are supported according to Readme:

1. The system must contain the following Intel products:

* Intel(R) Pentium(R) III or Pentium(R) 4 processor
* Intel(R) 82801AA, 82801AB, 82801BA or 82801DB
controller


even if motherboard does not support LBA48 and is restricted to 137gb barrier IAA allows use of larger hard drives.

If you got i810 or other chipset without hardware LBA48 support I highly recommending partitioning hard drive normally under Windows 9x boot disk using Fdisk so bootable space is below 137gb barrier. After you have installed 98SE or Windows ME. You should install IAA 2.3. Here is copy of it installer which is bit tricky to find these days. After this DO NOT extend your boot partition beyond 137gb barrier as in case of Windows hosing up and needing use boot disk it may result data corruption. Create second partition for remaining space.

Here you can see screenshot of IAA recognizing 320gb WD IDE hard drive with full capacity under Windows Millenium Edition running on i810 chipset
iaa.jpg
iaa.jpg (110.01 KiB) Viewed 23 times
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