Re: Hard drives

[Harry Broomhall <haeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:47:20 -0000, you wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>Forgive what may be a stupid question but I am confused by the current
>selection of hard drives available.
>
>Drives >120gb seem to be very cheap now but what are the limitations
on
>using these?
>
>If the machine BIOS cant support a vey big drive, would fitting a PCI
IDE
>controller card overcome the problem?

Yes - it would need to be a new IDE card - or a older Promise card
that has been flashed for 48bit.  You would need to confirm with the
vendor that it had support for 48bit.

>
>I seem to remember something about Windows not recognising large drives
as
>well until something or other was done. What ?

Depends on what version of Windows.  XP SP1 dealt with the 48bit
problem, as does SP4 on Win2k.  With Win9x you will have problems.

>
>Tha machine I want to build will have a motherboard that is a few years
ol=
d
>so I am not sure what maximum size it can support.
=20=20
Depends how old, but it sounds like you will be limited to 128GB.

>
>In the past I have hit limits twice :-(
>
>I bought a 13.5Gb drive and the mobo would only see it as 8.4Gb
>A while later I got a new motherboard and could then use all 13.5Gb
Then I
>bought a 40Gb drive and it refused to boot unless I fitted the 32Gb
limit
>jumper on the drive.

There have been many 'limits' in the world of hard drives down the
years!

>
>I would hate to buy a big drive and find that I couldnt use it all.
>
>BTW, I am referring to ATA drives here.
>
>The only machine I have with SATA is the Dell =A399 Server. Do the same
la=
rge
>disk problems also occur with SATA ?
>

If it has SATA then it is likely to be new enough to cope with
48bit.

Regards,
Harry.