harddisk sizes

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John

I have a GA-BX2000 motherboard which I'm planning on giving to my
little brother. He's wanting to put a large harddisk with it. The
motherboard has a max of Ultra-DMA 33 controller onboard. I know it
can handle 40GB HD because I use it, but he's wanting to know can it
handle any higher?

Also, what would happen if he put in say a 80GB drive, would it just
cut it down to something it could understand or would it just ignore
the whole HD? He's wondering about this because when he can afford to
upgrade at a later point, at least he'd be able to take a large HD
with him, since there isn't much difference in prices between 60GB and
80GB at the moment.

We know that he could most likely add a HD controller card, but he's
not interested in doing that.
 
Howdy!

John said:
I have a GA-BX2000 motherboard which I'm planning on giving to my
little brother. He's wanting to put a large harddisk with it. The
motherboard has a max of Ultra-DMA 33 controller onboard. I know it
can handle 40GB HD because I use it, but he's wanting to know can it
handle any higher?
Click to expand...

64G no problem if it'll handle a 40G, but past that, I wouldn't
claim.

HOWEVER - Check the Gigabyte web site and see if there's a BIOS
update for > 64G HDs.
Also, what would happen if he put in say a 80GB drive, would it just
cut it down to something it could understand or would it just ignore
the whole HD? He's wondering about this because when he can afford to
upgrade at a later point, at least he'd be able to take a large HD
with him, since there isn't much difference in prices between 60GB and
80GB at the moment.
Click to expand...

The problem is, during the detect phase, the BIOS tends to lock up
if the number of cylinders is greater than the range the BIOS allowed for.

THAT said - a lot of 80G drives have a 32G or 64G "clip" jumper to
avoid that problem.
We know that he could most likely add a HD controller card, but he's
not interested in doing that.
Click to expand...

Well, if he's planning to run 2K or XP, that would actually be the
better solution ... for three reasons.

1) Gets to run at ATA-100 speeds instead of ATA-33 (today's drives
can flood an ATA-33 channel)

2) Has an alternative boot channel so that if you move to another
motherboard, you can still find the boot device instead of getting
"Boot_Device_Unavailable".

3) No BIOS problem if he does that.

Far as that's concerned, at the local Sam's Club they have 3 year
warranty 200G drives (186G usable) for 160USD. Complete with controller.

Hard deal to beat, that is.

RwP
 
I have a GA-BX2000 motherboard which I'm planning on giving to my
little brother. He's wanting to put a large harddisk with it. The
motherboard has a max of Ultra-DMA 33 controller onboard. I know it
can handle 40GB HD because I use it, but he's wanting to know can it
handle any higher?

Also, what would happen if he put in say a 80GB drive, would it just
cut it down to something it could understand or would it just ignore
the whole HD? He's wondering about this because when he can afford to
upgrade at a later point, at least he'd be able to take a large HD
with him, since there isn't much difference in prices between 60GB and
80GB at the moment.

We know that he could most likely add a HD controller card, but he's
not interested in doing that.
Click to expand...


The easiest way is to add a Promise card (comes with the speedy
80-wire cable.) It's about $25 at Newegg. The controller will speed
up drive access too. What you now have on the motherboard may or may
not work, as far as recognizing the entire drive.
 
Thanks for the comments. I'll pass on the info.

One thing that we did find out though was that Maxtor have a program
that you can download from their site that will allow max usage, even
though the BIOS doesn't notice the whole drive. Some kind of overlay.
I think my brother most likely take this route.
 
Personally I would spend the extra $15 or so and use a pci ata controller
card and toss that overlay crap in the dustbin where it belongs....

Regards, Bob "hopelessly insane machine warrior" Troll
 
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