Will SATA Card Work?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott
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Scott

I'm thinking of purchasing a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive,
7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM from www.tigerdirect.com for my 6-year old
Gateway WinXP Pro desktop. I know I need to deteremine if my BIOS will
support a drive this large. I'm also looking at getting a Masscool XWT-PCIE11
Internal SATA, 3-Port PCI Express Card for $19.95. Will this card allow
the SATA drive to work properly in my system? I've never used a SATA drive
before.

Thanks!
Scott
 
Scott said:
I'm thinking of purchasing a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard
Drive, 7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM from www.tigerdirect.com for my
6-year old
Gateway WinXP Pro desktop. I know I need to deteremine if my BIOS
will support a drive this large. I'm also looking at getting a
Masscool XWT-PCIE11 Internal SATA, 3-Port PCI Express Card for
$19.95. Will this card allow
the SATA drive to work properly in my system? I've never used a
SATA drive before.
Click to expand...

A controller card will bypass your BIOS - so yes.
 
A computer six years old is unlikely to have any SATA interface, and
definitely won't have a PCI-E interface. You need a card with a
standard PCI connector such as the XWT-RC018.
 
Some add-on SATA cards don't permit booting from the attached drive.
(Technically, some cards don't have their own BIOS, so are not visible until
after the OS has loaded.) If you need the SATA disk to be your main drive,
check this aspect.

Also, are you sure your computer has PCI-Express slots? I don't think they
existed six years ago. Best to have a look inside. A PCI-E machine will have
one or two long slim slots (16-bit) and a number of very short ones. A PCI
machine will have a number of same-length, chunkier white slots.
 
Scott said:
I'm thinking of purchasing a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard
Drive, 7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM from www.tigerdirect.com for my
6-year old
Gateway WinXP Pro desktop. I know I need to deteremine if my BIOS
will support a drive this large. I'm also looking at getting a
Masscool XWT-PCIE11 Internal SATA, 3-Port PCI Express Card for
$19.95. Will this card allow
the SATA drive to work properly in my system? I've never used a
SATA drive before.
Click to expand...

Shenan said:
A controller card will bypass your BIOS - so yes.
Click to expand...

Somehow I missed that you said "PCI Express" after saying your machine was 6
years old.

You probably will want to find a PCI card or at least confirm what you can
put in your computer.
 
Anteaus said:
Some add-on SATA cards don't permit booting from the attached drive.
(Technically, some cards don't have their own BIOS, so are not visible until
after the OS has loaded.) If you need the SATA disk to be your main drive,
check this aspect.

Also, are you sure your computer has PCI-Express slots? I don't think they
existed six years ago. Best to have a look inside. A PCI-E machine will have
one or two long slim slots (16-bit) and a number of very short ones. A PCI
machine will have a number of same-length, chunkier white slots.
Click to expand...

Anteaus,

OK, I'll check it out and report back.

Scott
 
Shenan said:
A controller card will bypass your BIOS - so yes.
Click to expand...

Shenan Stanley,

I'm thinking of just using a WD 250GB drive as a new boot drive. How
can I tell if the BIOS will support this larger drive?

Thanks!
Scott
 
<snip>
Entire thread - in its entirety:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...232d61b0a31/be95f8519ce4fbf8#be95f8519ce4fbf8


I'm thinking of just using a WD 250GB drive as a new boot drive.
How can I tell if the BIOS will support this larger drive?
Click to expand...

The ways to be completely sure is to read the user manual for your
motherboard or contact the manufacturer of your motherboard for assistance
or try it (the latter being the least favorable option - hah.)

If you can post what the Make/Model of your computer is - perhaps someone
here can tell you more about it (maybe even point you to the online
downloadable manual, etc.) If it is not a system like a Dell, HP, Gateway,
IBM - you could install Belarc Advisor and find out what the
mainboard/motherboard is and post that part here and maybe someone can help
you with that information available to them.
 
Entire thread - in its entirety:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...232d61b0a31/be95f8519ce4fbf8#be95f8519ce4fbf8




The ways to be completely sure is to read the user manual for your
motherboard or contact the manufacturer of your motherboard for
assistance or try it (the latter being the least favorable option -
hah.)
If you can post what the Make/Model of your computer is - perhaps
someone here can tell you more about it (maybe even point you to the
online downloadable manual, etc.) If it is not a system like a Dell,
HP, Gateway, IBM - you could install Belarc Advisor and find out what
the mainboard/motherboard is and post that part here and maybe
someone can help you with that information available to them.
Click to expand...

Since it's a Gateway, all you need is your serial # and contact Gateway
suppport online or phone their 800. They can answer your question
easily. They'll have your exact shipped configuration, invoice, the
whole shot. I found out my capabilities just by downloading the mother
board and parts list; it had the SATA connectors pointed out on it, and
in anohter place I found the rev etc. of the SATA controller it used and
what versions of SATA it would support.
My machine is a little newer than yours but you should be able to get
the same info from them.
 
Hello,

Normaly we have roaming profiles but
I have a few Windows XP PCs where i want only allow local profiles.
I know there is a Group Policy, but i dont want use that.
instead is there a registry key or something es where i can set the P
to
use local Profiles only

Thanks
Kamal sa
 
Hello,
Normaly we have roaming profiles but
I have a few Windows XP PCs where i want only allow local profiles.
I know there is a Group Policy, but i dont want use that.
instead is there a registry key or something es where i can set the PC
to
use local Profiles only

Thanks
Kamal sab
Click to expand...

What does that have to do with SATA drives? You need to start your own
thread.
 
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