I want to add a large HD but I see the following footnote in all the
product ads:
"Note: Larger drives above 120 GB may not have their full capacity
available due to BIOS limitations - users with Win 2000 and XP can fit
a controller card to use the full capacity."

How can I determine for sure whether my 3-year old XP PC will handle
250GB without that hassle please?

Hopefully relevant extract from my PC spec:
-------------------------------------------
CPU = AMD Athlon XP1800+ with 512MB PC2100 DDR memory, m/b = ASUS
A7A266-E (+sound), BIOS = Award Software with ASUS A7A266-E ACPI BIOS
v 1011, System Chipset = M1647 ALiMAGiK 1 AGP System Controller, Buses
= AGP/PCI/USB, L2 On-board Cache = 256kB ECC synchronous write-back,
HDD = two 60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Don't know if this will help. I have a M/B (presently in my parts cabinet)
Asus A7V266e that is the approximate vintage of your board. With the latest
bios update this board was able to see larger drives. After that, it is up
to the O/S to see and interpret the drive.

SP1 and SP2 have what is necessary for this to occur.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"Terry Pinnell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I want to add a large HD but I see the following footnote in all the
> product ads:
> "Note: Larger drives above 120 GB may not have their full capacity
> available due to BIOS limitations - users with Win 2000 and XP can fit
> a controller card to use the full capacity."
>
> How can I determine for sure whether my 3-year old XP PC will handle
> 250GB without that hassle please?
>
> Hopefully relevant extract from my PC spec:
> -------------------------------------------
> CPU = AMD Athlon XP1800+ with 512MB PC2100 DDR memory, m/b = ASUS
> A7A266-E (+sound), BIOS = Award Software with ASUS A7A266-E ACPI BIOS
> v 1011, System Chipset = M1647 ALiMAGiK 1 AGP System Controller, Buses
> = AGP/PCI/USB, L2 On-board Cache = 256kB ECC synchronous write-back,
> HDD = two 60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer
>
> --
> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>

http://www.asus.com/support/download...266-E&Type=All
is a link to the manual.
"Richard Urban" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Don't know if this will help. I have a M/B (presently in my parts cabinet)
> Asus A7V266e that is the approximate vintage of your board. With the
> latest bios update this board was able to see larger drives. After that,
> it is up to the O/S to see and interpret the drive.
>
> SP1 and SP2 have what is necessary for this to occur.
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Richard Urban
>
> aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
>
> If you knew as much as you think you know,
> You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
>
>
> "Terry Pinnell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I want to add a large HD but I see the following footnote in all the
>> product ads:
>> "Note: Larger drives above 120 GB may not have their full capacity
>> available due to BIOS limitations - users with Win 2000 and XP can fit
>> a controller card to use the full capacity."
>>
>> How can I determine for sure whether my 3-year old XP PC will handle
>> 250GB without that hassle please?
>>
>> Hopefully relevant extract from my PC spec:
>> -------------------------------------------
>> CPU = AMD Athlon XP1800+ with 512MB PC2100 DDR memory, m/b = ASUS
>> A7A266-E (+sound), BIOS = Award Software with ASUS A7A266-E ACPI BIOS
>> v 1011, System Chipset = M1647 ALiMAGiK 1 AGP System Controller, Buses
>> = AGP/PCI/USB, L2 On-board Cache = 256kB ECC synchronous write-back,
>> HDD = two 60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer
>>
>> --
>> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>>
>
>

Use the manual link provided by Michael and the wealth of info in the FAQ
and general info pages at www.wdc.com

r.

"Michael Powers" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:hEkTd.634$(E-Mail Removed)...
> http://www.asus.com/support/download...266-E&Type=All
> is a link to the manual.
> "Richard Urban" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Don't know if this will help. I have a M/B (presently in my parts
>> cabinet) Asus A7V266e that is the approximate vintage of your board. With
>> the latest bios update this board was able to see larger drives. After
>> that, it is up to the O/S to see and interpret the drive.
>>
>> SP1 and SP2 have what is necessary for this to occur.
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Richard Urban
>>
>> aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
>>
>> If you knew as much as you think you know,
>> You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
>>
>>
>> "Terry Pinnell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>I want to add a large HD but I see the following footnote in all the
>>> product ads:
>>> "Note: Larger drives above 120 GB may not have their full capacity
>>> available due to BIOS limitations - users with Win 2000 and XP can fit
>>> a controller card to use the full capacity."
>>>
>>> How can I determine for sure whether my 3-year old XP PC will handle
>>> 250GB without that hassle please?
>>>
>>> Hopefully relevant extract from my PC spec:
>>> -------------------------------------------
>>> CPU = AMD Athlon XP1800+ with 512MB PC2100 DDR memory, m/b = ASUS
>>> A7A266-E (+sound), BIOS = Award Software with ASUS A7A266-E ACPI BIOS
>>> v 1011, System Chipset = M1647 ALiMAGiK 1 AGP System Controller, Buses
>>> = AGP/PCI/USB, L2 On-board Cache = 256kB ECC synchronous write-back,
>>> HDD = two 60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer
>>>
>>> --
>>> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

"namniar" <this@that> wrote:

>Use the manual link provided by Michael and the wealth of info in the FAQ
>and general info pages at www.wdc.com

Thanks all, I'll follow those helpful leads.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Hope you get it figured out.

r.

"Terry Pinnell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "namniar" <this@that> wrote:
>
>>Use the manual link provided by Michael and the wealth of info in the FAQ
>>and general info pages at www.wdc.com
>
> Thanks all, I'll follow those helpful leads.
>
> --
> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>

"namniar" <this@that> wrote:

>Hope you get it figured out.

From the help here and elsewhere I got it sorted thanks. One thing I
discovered was that I had a slightly out of date version of
\system32\atapi.sys, which would have prevented XP SP1 handling
HDs>137GB, even though m/b and BIOS were happily OK. But I found a
link to an MS hotfix, and that gave me the version I need.

So now (apart from choosing a brand and supplier), it's a matter of
figuring out how I accomplish the switch with a minimum of
effort/risk. But I'd better post separately about that when I've
organised my thoughts.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK