Big ATA/IDE HD for old PC?

[Laurent S.]

*********** Big ATA/IDE HD for old PC?




Hi all,

My old PC is a late 1997 200Mhz Pentium 1
that originally had an 8 Gb IDE HD.

I would like to replace that HD with a
ATA/IDE HD of much higher capacity
under Windows 2000.

Possible? Ways and means?

Cheers

laurent s.

 

[ohaya]

*********** Big ATA/IDE HD for old PC?

Hi all,

My old PC is a late 1997 200Mhz Pentium 1
that originally had an 8 Gb IDE HD.

I would like to replace that HD with a
ATA/IDE HD of much higher capacity
under Windows 2000.

Possible? Ways and means?

Cheers

Hi,

If the BIOS doesn't support the larger drive, you can get one of the
Ultra ATA 100 or 133 PCI cards, and plug the drive into that. You
should make sure that the card comes with a Win2K driver.

Jim

 

[Rod Speed]

My old PC is a late 1997 200Mhz Pentium 1
that originally had an 8 Gb IDE HD.

I would like to replace that HD with a
ATA/IDE HD of much higher capacity
under Windows 2000.

Possible?

Yes. Always possible.

Ways and means?

Best approach is to try a bigger drive and
see what happens. It will often work fine.

If it wont boot at all, and has an award bios,
likely that's the award bios fault. You can just
jumper the drive to limit its size to 32G and
install the bios overlay that allows for that.

You can also add a biosed IDE card and plug the
drive into that instead of using the motherboard ports.

You can continue to boot off the 8G drive and let 2K
find the bigger hard drive and have 2K installed on
that too, just dont list the big drive in the bios.

 

[Laurent S.]

Re: My old Pentium I 200 Mhz

Hi all


Many thanks to Jim and Rod
for very helpful advice.

A friend Sergei Lesenko also mentioned:

http://www.compuapps.com/Download/swissknife/swissknife.htm
http://www.compuapps.com/Download/swissknife/setup.exe
http://visopsys.org/partlogic/


Cheers

Laurent S.

 

[Toshi1873]

If the BIOS doesn't support the larger drive, you can get one of the
Ultra ATA 100 or 133 PCI cards, and plug the drive into that. You
should make sure that the card comes with a Win2K driver.

Specifically, you'll need an ATA/133 card. The ATA/100 spec did not
include support for drives over 137GB (whereas the main reason for
ATA/133 was support of large drives).

A Rocket133SB PCI card will do the trick quite nicely.

Odds are good that the original motherboard from 1997 will not support
over 137GB drives. Even the Coppermine Celeron motherboard that I have
has issues with drives larger then this (and that's basically a Pentium
III era chip).

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Specifically, you'll need an ATA/133 card.

No you dont.

The ATA/100 spec did not include support for drives over 137GB

The speed difference between ATA100 and ATA133
is completely irrelevant to 48 bit LBA support.

(whereas the main reason for ATA/133 was support of large drives).

Wrong.

Hordes of drives bigger than 137GB are used fine on ATA100 motherboard ports.

A Rocket133SB PCI card will do the trick quite nicely.

Odds are good that the original motherboard
from 1997 will not support over 137GB drives.

Depends entirely on what level of 'support' you want.

Even the Coppermine Celeron motherboard
that I have has issues with drives larger then
this (and that's basically a Pentium III era chip).

Works fine in one of mine.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Specifically, you'll need an ATA/133 card.

Nope.
Any ATA100 card that has a bios update available for big drives (>137GB) is fine.

The ATA/100 spec

There is no such spec.

did not include support for drives over 137GB
Nonsense.

(whereas the main reason for ATA/133 was support of large drives).

Utterly clueless.

A Rocket133SB PCI card will do the trick quite nicely.

Odds are good that the original motherboard from 1997 will not support
over 137GB drives.

The odds are spectacular.

Even the Coppermine Celeron motherboard that I have has issues with
drives larger then this (and that's basically a Pentium III era chip).

So what.

 

[ohaya]

Nope.
Any ATA100 card that has a bios update available for big drives (>137GB) is fine.

Hi,

It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure that I've used both a SIIG Ultra
ATA/100 and a Syba ATA/133 card (flashed from RAID to non-RAID IDE/ATA
firmware) in a couple of really old systems and was able to support
160GB hard drives on it (with Win2K SP4 and EnableBigLba).

Jim

 

[Toshi1873]

I'll amend what I wrote. ATA/100 doesn't necessarily indicate that it
will or won't support drives larger then 137GB. However, ATA/133 seems
to positively indicate that it will support drives larger then 137GB.

So for a ATA/100 interface, it's a crapshoot, some support 48bit others
don't. And the older ATA/66 interface is even less likely to support >
137GB drives. (Due to when they were manufactured, unless the company
building the machine decided to splurge on the 48bit addressing
capability. Remember, this is way back in the days of a 13GB drive
being "massive".)

http://forums.macnn.com/archive/index.php/t-194071.html
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=6
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=-151
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=65206

I'll still be very surprised if a Pentium 1 motherboard supports drives
larger then 137GB. But nobody has stated what the Manuf/Model of the
motherboard in question is or what level of PATA it supports. The
socket 370 Celeron motherboard that I have access to is only an ATA/66
system, so a Pentium I motherboard might even be only ATA/33. (And that
socket 370 motherboard only supports drives up to 137GB.)

 

[Rod Speed]

I'll amend what I wrote. ATA/100 doesn't necessarily indicate that it
will or won't support drives larger then 137GB. However, ATA/133
seems to positively indicate that it will support drives larger then 137GB.

Still utterly mangled, most obviously with motherboard
ports where what matters with 48 bit LBA support is
what the BIOS supports, not the interface standard.

So for a ATA/100 interface, it's a crapshoot,
some support 48bit others don't.

Thats got nothing to do with ATA100 at all.

And the older ATA/66 interface is even less likely to
support > 137GB drives. (Due to when they were
manufactured, unless the company building the machine
decided to splurge on the 48bit addressing capability.
Remember, this is way back in the days of a
13GB drive being "massive".)

Still got NOTHING to do with the ATAxx supported.

http://forums.macnn.com/archive/index.php/t-194071.html
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=6
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=-151
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=65206

All completely useless on that particular question.

I'll still be very surprised if a Pentium 1 motherboard
supports drives larger then 137GB.

Your surprise is your problem.

But nobody has stated what the Manuf/Model of the
motherboard in question is or what level of PATA it supports.

Its got NOTHING to do with what level of ATA it supports.

ALL that matters is whether the BIOS supports 48 bit LBA or not.

The socket 370 Celeron motherboard that I have access to is only an
ATA/66 system, so a Pentium I motherboard might even be only ATA/33.
(And that socket 370 motherboard only supports drives up to 137GB.)

There's plenty of those with 48 bit LBA support in the bios.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Still utterly mangled, most obviously with motherboard
ports where what matters with 48 bit LBA support is
what the BIOS supports, not the interface standard.

Utter nonsense.

Thats got nothing to do with ATA100 at all.

Yes it does where manufacturers support is concerned.

Still got NOTHING to do with the ATAxx supported.


All completely useless on that particular question.


Your surprise is your problem.


Its got NOTHING to do with what level of ATA it supports.

In theory. In practice it does.

ALL that matters is whether the BIOS supports 48 bit LBA or not.

And it won't if that's what the manufacturer has decided.

There's plenty of those with 48 bit LBA support in the bios.

Nonsense.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I'll amend what I wrote. ATA/100 doesn't necessarily indicate that it
will or won't support drives larger then 137GB. However, ATA/133 seems
to positively indicate that it will support drives larger then 137GB.

BIOS *and* driver wise.

So for a ATA/100 interface, it's a crapshoot, some support 48bit others
don't.

Most will have the 48-bit driver support even though they won't necessarily
have the 48-bit BIOS support.

And the older ATA/66 interface is even less likely to support > 137GB drives.

Lots of them may well be supported under the driver for the newer products.

(Due to when they were manufactured, unless the company building the machine
decided to splurge on the 48bit addressing capability.

Those machines aren't built anymore.

Remember, this is way back in the days of a 13GB drive being "massive".)

http://forums.macnn.com/archive/index.php/t-194071.html
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=6
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=-151
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=65206

I'll still be very surprised if a Pentium 1 motherboard supports drives
larger then 137GB.

Depends on the chipset and whether this chipset is still supported under the
newest drivers, ie the newest driver is just an updated version of the ones
for the older chipsets.

 

[Irwin]

I am a little surprised your old computer supported an 8 gb drive. Did
you use a drive overlay?

Anyhow, here is one way to do it. Just install Windows 2000 to the big
drive. When it first tries to install, it will create a partition that
is as large as the bios will allow, whatever it is, 2 gb, 8 gb,
whatever. It doesn't matter, win2k will install itself into it and
because it was sized to the bios limit it will be fine and bootable. It
will not occupy the entire hard drive but that is OK. Get your system
installed and up and running. Make sure you are using service pack 3 or
higher. Then install the large drive enabler patch that comes with most
hard drives or can be downloaded. Thus, win2k will now be able to see
the entire drive irrespective of your bios because once it boots it
will then bypass the bios and control the drive by itself. Then you use
win2k to create new partitions to fill up the rest of your drive. Those
partitions will only be visible to win2k, so if you crash you will not
be able to rescue them from DOS. I have done this on several old
systems, one older than yours, and it works fine.

Good luck,
Irwin