New 40Gig HDD on older PC's

[rbylart]

Hello,

I have just bought a new, you beaut, 40Gig Hard drive for my "getting older by the second" Pentium II PC. (Upgraded from a 6Gig??)

When I plugged it in the BIOS didn't recognise it all.

Is there a differnece between older hard disks and newer ones that would create this "Not being recognised" problem. I thought all Pentium PC's could use IDE hard drives as long as the operating system can recocognise the size.

Is there a "BIOS/Motherboard" factor that also determines what type of hard disk you can use.

Thanks
Ray Bylart

 

[tracer1]

maybe try updating the bios???

 

[rbylart]

Two reasons. I've heard that updating the BIOS is not for the feint hearted and friends have damaged their motherboard trying to do this.

Does this mean that newer HD drives are NOT compatible with some mothboards/BIOS's depending on age. I just want to get an understanding on at what point HDD manufactors decided not to be backward compatible. Is there a rule that defines the before and after eg PIII's are OK for modern Hard drives and PII's are not??

Whats a modern HD anyway is it called something different like IDE v2

Ray.

 

[wolluf]

Ray,

Its a motherboard/bios issue. There are various limits - 528MB, 2.1GB, 8GB, 32GB and 128GB (that I know about). As you're running Pentium II, you've probably hit the 32GB limit. Your mobo manufacturer may or may not have posted a bios upgrade to get over this (bios upgrades should be approached with care - but if you have the right upgrade binary, follow instructions and don't get a power outage while you are doing it, should be no problem). If there is one for the 32GB (sometimes says 33.8GB) limit, I'd flash bios. If not, options are:-

Buy a controller card (plugs in PCI slot - should be quite cheap)
Use drive manufacturer's overlay software to fool the mobo (I wouldn't recommend this - causes problems later)
Get a new mobo or smaller hard drive.

PS. Some drives have a jumper setting to limit their apparent size for backward compatibility (in cases like this). See if yours can be limited to 32GB.

 

[rbylart]

Spot on Wolluf. Thanks for the info. The mystry is solved and options recommended. I will try one of these, probably the BIOS upgrade with my rabbits foot next to me.

"So much to learn, so little time"

Ray

 

[jmatt]

Even if the brand is different , you may find what you wan't to know here .

http://igloo.its.unimelb.edu.au/Webmail/tips/msg00392.html

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/localcopy/R.Peel/cs250/63001.html

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213802,00.html

http://www.spcug.org/reviews/bl0107.htm

http://www.muhri.net/skipstone/