Largest disk for motherboard 2

[StevePB]

I have an Asus A7A266-E Socket A motherboard, running an AMD Athlon XP1800+ processor. I have come across suggestions in support forums that there is a limit to the IDE (PATA) disk size this will support (could be 120 GB max). I can't find anything in the manual or on the Asus web site about this. Does anyone know how I can find out.

Any help greatly appreciated.

- SB.

 

[wahnula]

Here's a helpful page:

http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/a7a266/

that addresses the problems with the BIOS and the ATA driver, and it seems to offer solutions.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[StevePB]

Tony,

Thank you so much for your prompt and spot on response. That looks like just what I need. I will post back when I have made some progress.

- SB.

 

[paparazi]

Largest disk for mothereboard or largest partition recognised?
The solution could be a larger disk plit up into several sub 132gig partitions...ie:

A 250 split into 2 X 125 partitions or
A 500 split into four.

You may however have to format/partition the drive on a newer system first.
Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[Freestone]

If this is a 48-bit LBA issue, or rather a lack of 48-bit support, then there is no use buying a large hard drive as the motherboard won't be able to go beyond the 137GB barrier. Dividing the drive into two or more smaller partitions won't help as anything beyond the 137GB line won't be addressable and attempts to use a partition that spans the 137GB line may lead to corrupt data in that partition.

http://www.48bitlba.com/faq.htm#FAQ1

 

[StevePB]

Thanks Paparazi and Freestone for your responses.

If you look at the link that Wahnula/Tony provided it shows that the mobo is capable, but needs BIOS/driver updates. I will try these as soon as I get a chance, as I intend to get a 160GB drive for my PC.

- SB.

 

[StevePB]

Update: I tried updating my BIOS with the utility provided by ASUS (which identified the mobo and said it was good to go) and after backing up the BIOS, erasing and (supposedly) re-writing the EEPROM it failed on verification. I chose the option to re-try and the same thing happened. I then chose to cancel, copied the BIOS backup image to a DOS bootable disk, rebooted and ... nothing - not even POST.

Luckily I found a link in a forum to

http://www.biosflash.co.uk

where they can supply a replacement BIOS chip.

Needless to say, I won't be doing any more fiddling about with low level updates on this machine. I'll just have to save up for a new PC.

Previous help still much appreciated though.

- SB.