Older laptop with USB but not USB 2.0

[pietb]

Hi everyone,

I have an older IBM ThinkPad iSeries laptop, circa 1999, running Redhat's Fedora OS. I am looking to add an external hard drive to it. The specifications of this external hard drive (SEAGATE ST3160024-A-RK 160GB EXTERNAL USB 2.0) indicate that it is USB 2.0 but I am almost certain that my laptop is just USB. Does anyone out there know if I can use this drive on my laptop?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Piet


---------------------------
Pieter Bergmans

http://www.portal2hp.com

- "Come discuss your enterprise and business class HP equipment

 

[rclarke250]

no,but not because of the usb,your bios will only support 137gb,I think. All USB 2.0 will clock down to 1.1,although that is not adviseable in a hard drive. Also there are usb 2.0 and firewire PCMCIA cards available to you for around 30-50 dollars.
Rich

I shall use google before asking stupid questions!

 

[pietb]

Rich,

Thanks for the reply. So your saying I should a.) get a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card for my laptop and b.) get a smaller external hard drive that will fit within the 137GB limit my bios is set to. Right?

Thanks for clearing it all up.

Piet

---------------------------
Pieter Bergmans

http://www.portal2hp.com

- "Come discuss your enterprise and business class HP equipment

 

[kiddpete]

I don't think the bios has to support it as long as Windows does via the USB drivers. I have an old Micron with a 13gig drive that the Micron's bios does not support. The bios is however, blissfully unaware of the drive which is connected to a PCI controller. The hard part was tricking the bios when the drive was installed, and drivers for the controller were not yet in place. You will not have this problem with a USB device.

 

[cdogg]

Nope, the 137GB limit does not apply to a USB drive. Even though your BIOS might use 24-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing) instead of the newer 48-bit, LBA is only related to the IDE interface.

Therefore when going over USB, Windows relies on the USB driver instead.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[rclarke250]

excellent, See I should take my own advice and look on google. HAHAHA! I take it firewire would work the same way as long as you had a driver and the port?

I shall use google before asking stupid questions!