ASUS A7V266-C Motherboard and Hard Disks > 250 Gb

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BOOGIEMAN

I bought my PC back in 2002.
I want to change Hard disk with one with bigger capacity.
Currently I have Maxtor (IDE/PATA I guess) 160 Gb.

Does somebody know will 250 Gb & 320 Gb hard disks work properly with
my motherboard ASUS A7V266-C ?
I'm not good with hardware, so I don't know what to google exactly
 
BOOGIEMAN said:
I bought my PC back in 2002.
I want to change Hard disk with one with bigger capacity.
Currently I have Maxtor (IDE/PATA I guess) 160 Gb.

Does somebody know will 250 Gb & 320 Gb hard disks work properly with
my motherboard ASUS A7V266-C ?
I'm not good with hardware, so I don't know what to google exactly
Click to expand...

Your motherboard will have 2 IDE (or called PATA these days) connectors. A
Primary and a Secondary channel. Each of these channels can support 2 IDE
devices - a Primary and a Slave device, IDe devices are things like hard
disks, CD-writers, DVD drives etc.

Provided that you haven't used all 4 channels (unlikely), then you can *add*
another hard drive without removing your existing 160GB drive. You are using
a 160GB drive at the moment, so your motherboard and operating system can
clearly handle drives over 137GB, which was a limit, so without even looking
up details of your motherboard, I would expect that you should be able to
buy and plug in any size EIDE / PATA drive.

You should check that you have enough power connectors, but you probably
have at least 1 spare.

When your new drive arrives, I would recommend having your 2 hard disks on
difference channels - one connected to the motherboard's Primary connector
and one connected to the motherboard's Secondary connector. The Primary
channel, Master device is usually the boot drive, so the easiest upgrade
path is just to leave your current drive where it is and install the new
hard drive on the Secondary channel (probably sharing a master/slave ribbon
cable with your CD/DVD drive).
 
BOOGIEMAN said:
I bought my PC back in 2002.
I want to change Hard disk with one with bigger capacity.
Currently I have Maxtor (IDE/PATA I guess) 160 Gb.

Does somebody know will 250 Gb & 320 Gb hard disks work properly with
my motherboard ASUS A7V266-C ?
I'm not good with hardware, so I don't know what to google exactly
Click to expand...

There is some info here. Your board is mentioned in the list.

http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/technicaldocuments_content.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&NO=501

If you get a big drive, and have trouble, you can use one of these
as these support large IDE drives. Read the customer reviews
before buying.

PROMISE ULTRA133 TX2 PCI IDE $34
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102007

There is some reading material here as well, for future reference.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

Paul
 
Provided that you haven't used all 4 channels (unlikely), then you can *add*
another hard drive without removing your existing 160GB drive. You are using
a 160GB drive at the moment, so your motherboard and operating system can
clearly handle drives over 137GB, which was a limit, so without even looking
up details of your motherboard, I would expect that you should be able to
buy and plug in any size EIDE / PATA drive.
Click to expand...

Wow, that was fast and detailed :) Thank you both

I have DVD Player and Writer ... I think I'll remove Player to relieve my
PSU (I have killed 3 PSU's in previous 5 years). Also, for same reason, I
planed to remove 160 Gb HD and put it in external rack.
New 320 Gb HD should be enough, I just hope it'll work without any problems
with my old motherboard.
 
BOOGIEMAN said:
Wow, that was fast and detailed :) Thank you both

I have DVD Player and Writer ... I think I'll remove Player to relieve my
PSU (I have killed 3 PSU's in previous 5 years). Also, for same reason, I
planed to remove 160 Gb HD and put it in external rack.
New 320 Gb HD should be enough, I just hope it'll work without any
problems
with my old motherboard.
Click to expand...

Well, if you do put all the drives internally on IDE cabling, put the hard
disks as the Master devices and a DVD drives as the Slave device on each
channel cable (Primary & Secondary). This will potentially improve hard disk
performance.

If you have killed 3 PSUs in 5 years, then you must be buying cheap
underpowered PSUs that are not well suited to your PC. This coudl actually
damage components in your PC, so may be a false economy!

I have the same PSU I bought several years ago and it has lived through 3
major upgrades (motherboard etc). If an extra hard drive is likely to push
the PSU over the edge, then I would suggest that it is running under too
much strain already! Perhaps the next one you buy should be a more powerful
one - don't go by the power written in the marketting bumf, but tell us
which ones you are considering (along with a list of everything needing
power) and someone in here will investigate 5v and 12v rail(s) and tell you
whether it is any good for your PC or not.
 
If you have killed 3 PSUs in 5 years, then you must be buying cheap
underpowered PSUs that are not well suited to your PC. This coudl actually
damage components in your PC, so may be a false economy!
Click to expand...

Well true, mostly ... all three were cheapest Chinese ones :)
In combination with unstable voltage here in Serbia, I'm happy
only PSU's died (luckily all in a warranty period :D)

I bought 20 ¤ PSU few months ago (most expensive I had so far)
It should last a little longer, I hope :)
 
:) True, I assumed all of it!
Click to expand...

Nor do we know if the original bios natively supported it
(without research or being told), as popping the Maxtor CD
in to *install* the drive would put a DDO (overlay) on it to
allow the full 160GB capacity if the bios had no 48LBA
support..
 
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