New HD Suggestions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Johnny_1
  • Start date Start date
J

Johnny_1

I couldn't resist an 80GB WD hard drive on sale for $50.
(I still remember buying a 4 Gb on sale for $279)
Anyway, I'm investigating suggestions or problems I might
face in installing this drive on an older Gateway Athlon
700 Mhz, latest BIOS available.
I run XP HE, 640 Mb ram, officeXP professional, the kids
run about 50 games, and I plan to store photos in the near
future.
I would partition the new drive (ntfs) as master 20 Gb/
60Gb and use the old 20Gb as fat32 slave.
All data is backed-up.
Anyone having suggestions or have done a similar install
and can make recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your time,
John
 
One problem you could run into is that your BIOS won't recognize the drive
given it's size. Plug the drive in and see if it is recognized at it's full
size. If not then you will either need to update the BIOS or use the
"capacity setting" on the drive (a special jumper setting that limits the
size of the drive).
 
Thanks for the quick reply,
I have flashed my bios with the latest update, which is
supposed to enable the bios to recognize drives >65Gb.
We will soon find out.
again, thanks for your input
-----Original Message-----
One problem you could run into is that your BIOS won't recognize the drive
given it's size. Plug the drive in and see if it is recognized at it's full
size. If not then you will either need to update the BIOS or use the
"capacity setting" on the drive (a special jumper setting that limits the
size of the drive).
--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


I couldn't resist an 80GB WD hard drive on sale for $50.
(I still remember buying a 4 Gb on sale for $279)
Anyway, I'm investigating suggestions or problems I might
face in installing this drive on an older Gateway Athlon
700 Mhz, latest BIOS available.
I run XP HE, 640 Mb ram, officeXP professional, the kids
run about 50 games, and I plan to store photos in the near
future.
I would partition the new drive (ntfs) as master 20 Gb/
60Gb and use the old 20Gb as fat32 slave.
All data is backed-up.
Anyone having suggestions or have done a similar install
and can make recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your time,
John
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
 
Rethink things. To do exactly what you want you're going to have to
reinstall, etc. which is a PITA.

.....Or....

Simply hang the new drive as a secondary data/application drive. Why rebuild
your house when you don't need to?

--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org
 
Johnny_1 said:
I couldn't resist an 80GB WD hard drive on sale for $50.
(I still remember buying a 4 Gb on sale for $279)
Anyway, I'm investigating suggestions or problems I might
face in installing this drive on an older Gateway Athlon
700 Mhz, latest BIOS available.
I run XP HE, 640 Mb ram, officeXP professional, the kids
run about 50 games, and I plan to store photos in the near
future.
I would partition the new drive (ntfs) as master 20 Gb/
60Gb and use the old 20Gb as fat32 slave.
All data is backed-up.
Anyone having suggestions or have done a similar install
and can make recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your time,
John
Click to expand...

I had the same problem with an old Gateway 700 MHz machine. Solved by
installing a Promise Ultra IDE controller card. this has it's own Bios thus
overcoming the Gateway Bios limitations. Works a treat and all the extra IDE
connections make changing, copying or upgrading HDDs a simple task.

Richard.
 
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