"hb" said:
Will this motherboard handle a large HDD ? Got my eye on a 160 GB at the
moment. I know about Windows XP needing SP1 etc , but I've also seen some
people needing to flash motherboards etc - which I've never done. Any
experiences appreciated. TIA.
ps. Just a normal ATA connection - no raid involved.
These are the Asus "general" resources -
http://www.asus.it/support/english/techref/48bithdd/index.aspx (modern)
http://www.asuscom.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm (older)
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm (patched BIOS)
The first of those links, says your motherboard needs BIOS 1002, which
it likely already has. And the limit is 128 (binary) gigabytes, which
is the same as the 137 (disk manufacturer decimal) gigabytes.
Generally, a 160 (decimal) gigabyte drive is the first one to need
48bit capabilities on the motherboard.
The previous level was 28 bit sector addressing (512 bytes per
sector). That is what defined the "limit" of 128GB, before the
BIOS added support for 48 bit addressing. (2**28)*512 was the
old limit. That equals 2**7 x (2**10 x 2**10 x 2**10) or 128GB
binary, or multiplied out, it is 137,438,953,472.
HTH,
Paul
