EIDE (Enhanced IDE) vs IDE

[David Fairbrother]

What is EIDE? I am thinking of replacing a hard drive in my old (old,
old old, 1996 PC) and it's - like most HDD's of its vintage - IDE. I
have seen an "EIDE" hard drive from Western Digital advertised with my
local IT company. Would this use the same connectors/be compatible with
this old computer? My old PC is an HP Pavilion 7222. The HDD is Western
Digital 400BB IDE 40GB/7200RPM/100. (i'm not completely sure that it is
EIDE - could somebody check? i heard somewhere it was)
any help appreciated

 

[Gerard Bok]

What is EIDE? I am thinking of replacing a hard drive in my old (old,
old old, 1996 PC) and it's - like most HDD's of its vintage - IDE. I
have seen an "EIDE" hard drive from Western Digital advertised with my
local IT company. Would this use the same connectors/be compatible with
this old computer? My old PC is an HP Pavilion 7222. The HDD is Western
Digital 400BB IDE 40GB/7200RPM/100. (i'm not completely sure that it is
EIDE - could somebody check? i heard somewhere it was)
any help appreciated

Formally, IDE has been enhanced and is now called EIDE.
Practically, all harddrives are EIDE nowadays. And nobody cares.
As long as you stick to PATA drives, your connectors will match.

If you plan to replace a harddisk in an older PC, first check if
your BIOS supports the new disk size.
If it doesn't you may need a bios upgrade. (Probably not a
problem for a HP PC, often a huge problem for less supported
'brands'.)

 

[David Fairbrother]

Formally, IDE has been enhanced and is now called EIDE.
Practically, all harddrives are EIDE nowadays. And nobody cares.
As long as you stick to PATA drives, your connectors will match.

If you plan to replace a harddisk in an older PC, first check if
your BIOS supports the new disk size.
If it doesn't you may need a bios upgrade. (Probably not a
problem for a HP PC, often a huge problem for less supported
'brands'.)

cheers - it'll be good to bring this old horse back

 

[MCheu]

What is EIDE? I am thinking of replacing a hard drive in my old (old,
old old, 1996 PC) and it's - like most HDD's of its vintage - IDE. I
have seen an "EIDE" hard drive from Western Digital advertised with my
local IT company. Would this use the same connectors/be compatible with
this old computer? My old PC is an HP Pavilion 7222. The HDD is Western
Digital 400BB IDE 40GB/7200RPM/100. (i'm not completely sure that it is
EIDE - could somebody check? i heard somewhere it was)
any help appreciated

Check out this site for a very good explanation and historical
context:

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/unstdEIDE.html

 

[kony]

What is EIDE? I am thinking of replacing a hard drive in my old (old,
old old, 1996 PC) and it's - like most HDD's of its vintage - IDE. I
have seen an "EIDE" hard drive from Western Digital advertised with my
local IT company. Would this use the same connectors/be compatible with
this old computer? My old PC is an HP Pavilion 7222. The HDD is Western
Digital 400BB IDE 40GB/7200RPM/100. (i'm not completely sure that it is
EIDE - could somebody check? i heard somewhere it was)
any help appreciated

It would be better if nobody used the terms EIDE or IDE at
all. What you need is more properly called ATA, or Parallel
ATA. Considering the age of your system, it would support
ATA33 at most and likely not the capacity support for modern
drives. It likely has an 8MB or somewhat higher limit but
not as high as modern drives.

You might check for a motherboard bios update, but I
wouldn't expect much. You could buy a PCI ATA133 controller
card such as a Promise Ultra133. You could use the software
included with retail drives to install a drive overlay (some
do it automagically) but the drive overlay is the least
desirable option.

Why would you pay a pretty penny for a 400GB HDD for a '96
system? Yes the connectors are compatible if it's actually
a "PC" rather than a server (that might use SCSI instead)
but the capacity limit (as well as the limit on capacity
from an old OS) might be an issue.

 

[kony]

It would be better if nobody used the terms EIDE or IDE at
all. What you need is more properly called ATA, or Parallel
ATA. Considering the age of your system, it would support
ATA33 at most and likely not the capacity support for modern
drives. It likely has an 8MB or somewhat higher limit but
not as high as modern drives.

You might check for a motherboard bios update, but I
wouldn't expect much. You could buy a PCI ATA133 controller
card such as a Promise Ultra133. You could use the software
included with retail drives to install a drive overlay (some
do it automagically) but the drive overlay is the least
desirable option.

Why would you pay a pretty penny for a 400GB HDD for a '96
system? Yes the connectors are compatible if it's actually
a "PC" rather than a server (that might use SCSI instead)
but the capacity limit (as well as the limit on capacity
from an old OS) might be an issue.

Oops, I misread 40GB as 400GB, ANd above I mistyped 8GB as
8MB.

The point is that it is unlikely that your motherboard will
support a 40GB HDD natively. If there is a bios update
available (and you can find it after a decade), there's a
good chance it would increase the HDD capacity support if
the board had a fair support from the manufacturer.

Otherwise, you can take a wait-n-see approach... buy the
drive, install and see what capacity the system reports. if
it doesn't report the entire capacity then you need the PCI
ATA controller card, the drive overlay software, OR there is
a 3rd choice I had forgotten- that many drives have a 32GB
capacity limit jumper setting so all you'd have to do is set
that jumper and you loose a few GB, not even 10GB since the
actual capacity of a 40GB HDD is in decimal not binary, but
the 32GB that the jumper sets is binary GB.

 

[Curious George]

What is EIDE? I am thinking of replacing a hard drive in my old (old,
old old, 1996 PC) and it's - like most HDD's of its vintage - IDE. I

IIRC 1996 vintage PC's shipped with EIDE.

have seen an "EIDE" hard drive from Western Digital advertised with my
local IT company. Would this use the same connectors/be compatible with
this old computer? My old PC is an HP Pavilion 7222. The HDD is Western
Digital 400BB IDE 40GB/7200RPM/100. (i'm not completely sure that it is
EIDE - could somebody check? i heard somewhere it was)
any help appreciated

The difference between IDE & EIDE is trivial & obsolete. AFAIK your
PC can't natively recognize a drive over 2GB or use the newer UDMA
modes.

You can physically connect & install this 40GB drive but you will need
to either install a software layer (from the disk manufacturer or
ontrack) or use a PCI card to work. It will be seen with the software
layer but will perform in PIO mode. It will perform faster & be
easier to deal with if you buy a $20 PCI card. Unfortunately likely
not by very much, though.

 

[don]

2 GB limit is a file system limit and can be overcome by using Fat32, NTFS,
etc. however you would have to be using win98 or later (I am guessing you
are anyway).

 

[Curious George]

2 GB limit is a file system limit and can be overcome by using Fat32, NTFS,
etc. however you would have to be using win98 or later (I am guessing you
are anyway).

Sorry. No cigar
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html

<quote>
Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity
barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system
issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here.
</quote>

 

[kony]

Sorry. No cigar
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html

<quote>
Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity
barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system
issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here.
</quote>

It's a bit premature to speculate on these things, if there
are bios updates still available the limit might be much
higher. It might be good for the OP to research this.

 

[Curious George]

Sorry. No cigar
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html

<quote>
Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity
barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system
issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here.
</quote>

and given the dates & circumstances the chances of HP or any OEM
releasing an updated BIOS to address 40GB drives or >PIO mode is 0.
Any way you slice it he's got a workaround to deal with.

Oh and Win95 OSR2 supports FAT32.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fat32preinstall.mspx

IIRC it came out at the end of 1996 & was more common to ship on PCs
1997.

It's more likely that the computer came with the initial major Win95
release or NT3.5 or 4. NT4 came out in 1996. An upgrade to Win98 is
already stretching things.

And back in the day ppl Running Win95 who didn't get their paws on
OSR2 but upgraded to a new 4 or 6 gig drive a year or 2 later simply
filled it with 2 gig partitions. In those days that was generous.

 

[kony]

and given the dates & circumstances the chances of HP or any OEM
releasing an updated BIOS to address 40GB drives or >PIO mode is 0.

Don't be silly. HP and the other OEMs could have easily
released such a bios update a decade ago, but as with most
OEM systems, it shipped with an early bios.

Do you know what chipset it uses?
PIO mode is not a matter of upgrade, either it supports DMA
or doesn't. From the era, it's borderline- a lot of popular
chipsets at the time did support ATA33.

Any way you slice it he's got a workaround to deal with.

Oh and Win95 OSR2 supports FAT32.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fat32preinstall.mspx

IIRC it came out at the end of 1996 & was more common to ship on PCs
1997.

It's more likely that the computer came with the initial major Win95
release or NT3.5 or 4. NT4 came out in 1996. An upgrade to Win98 is
already stretching things.

And back in the day ppl Running Win95 who didn't get their paws on
OSR2 but upgraded to a new 4 or 6 gig drive a year or 2 later simply
filled it with 2 gig partitions. In those days that was generous.

True, though he may only need a couple 2GB partitions
considering all the software back then was so much smaller
as well.

 

[Curious George]

It's a bit premature to speculate on these things, if there
are bios updates still available the limit might be much
higher. It might be good for the OP to research this.

No. It's certainly not premature to address don's ignorance of the
4,096 cylinder boundary

As far as there being a BIOS update certainly there is no harm in
looking. But based on firsthand experience, I'd be willing to bet
that it is not premature speculation, rather a foregone conclusion.
Given the date he'd be lucky to get support for 4 Gig drives. 8.4
gigs would be highly unusual. The 33.8 GB Barrier started coming up
ca 1999, when the machine is slated EOL.

For a 1996 era machine we should be expecting something like a Pentium
Classic 120 or 133 (plus or minus) with ~16MB EDO, 4x or 8x CDROM, & a
1 or 2 gig drive.

Off the top of my head I can't recall any Pentium Classic machines
whose BIOS's were updated to support even 8.4 gigs. IIRC the
introduction of 4-8 gig drives roughly correlated with the
introduction of ATA33, so no one bothered with that kind of BIOS
update. Many Pentium MMX machines could support 8.4gigs & ATA33 out
of the box. Although typically even those were never updated to
support 40gigs and this was a couple years later.

A cursory look at support for his machine shows the current BIOS v.
1.00.02.CHOL dated 04-1999 fixed a Y2k date issue only. You can see
from the revision number not much has been going on in the last 3
years. Not unusual even for Tier1 OEMs. I don't know where all this
confidence is coming from in this thread, that a 1996, low end
Pavillion, is going to be so dramatically upgraded via BIOS updates
over so many years. At this time BIOS updates were mostly for
bugfixes & very rarely if ever for upgrades. Development for a
product was basically dead after a year or two. An upgrade to
technology beyond that period is wishful thinking.

 

[Curious George]

Don't be silly. HP and the other OEMs could have easily
released such a bios update a decade ago, but as with most
OEM systems, it shipped with an early bios.

Oh boy. I see my name has gotten you hot under the collor. You're
posting feverishly now. Maybe when you read my other post you'll cool
off.

Do you know what chipset it uses?
PIO mode is not a matter of upgrade, either it supports DMA
or doesn't. From the era, it's borderline- a lot of popular
chipsets at the time did support ATA33.

No it's not borderline at all. ATA33 is a couple of product cycles
later. ATA33 didn't exist at the time so there were no shipping
chipsets that supported ATA33 in 1996 - or that were upgraded to that
via BIOS update.

 

[kony]

On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:03:21 GMT, Curious George

IIRC the
introduction of 4-8 gig drives roughly correlated with the
introduction of ATA33,

The typical 2GB drive was split fairly, a lot of ATA33 but
plenty that weren't. Perhaps considering very early 1-2GB
drives, not ATA33 yet but these drives weren't going to be
appearing in the typical OEM "PC" boxes. Taking Western
Digital for example, Caviar 32500 was MW DMA only but
thereafter (including ~ 2GB models) ATA33.

so no one bothered with that kind of BIOS
update. Many Pentium MMX machines could support 8.4gigs & ATA33 out
of the box. Although typically even those were never updated to
support 40gigs and this was a couple years later.

It wasn't two years, '97 brought Pentium 2 and the typical
Intel chipset board from '97 was updated to support up to
128GB. TX chipset came prior to that, early '97 and had
ATA33 for skt 7.

Not all OEM boards perhaps, but then in that era OEM boards
were quite likely to stray not so far from retail boards and
in some cases could be tricked into accepting retail board
bios if there were no other recourse.

A cursory look at support for his machine shows the current BIOS v.
1.00.02.CHOL dated 04-1999 fixed a Y2k date issue only. You can see
from the revision number not much has been going on in the last 3
years. Not unusual even for Tier1 OEMs. I don't know where all this
confidence is coming from in this thread, that a 1996, low end
Pavillion, is going to be so dramatically upgraded via BIOS updates
over so many years.

Updated after '99, likely not, BUT that doesn't necessarily
mean the capacity wasn't updated previously. Often bios
details are sketchy with OEMs, capacity support increases
may not be mentioned. That's not to imply it's any more or
less likely, only that it isn't really to be taken for
granted either way.

At this time BIOS updates were mostly for
bugfixes & very rarely if ever for upgrades. Development for a
product was basically dead after a year or two. An upgrade to
technology beyond that period is wishful thinking.

That might be applicable in specific circumstances, maybe
even this one, but isn't nearly a universal truth. Above
example of '97 and P2 boards, did have drive capacity
support updated quite significantly. Take for example
Atlanta, AL440LX. Incredibly common OEM board.

 

[kony]

Oh boy. I see my name has gotten you hot under the collor. You're
posting feverishly now. Maybe when you read my other post you'll cool
off.

Feverishly... LOL.
I take each post one at a time. When you're fudging a bit,
don't be surprised to see replies.

No it's not borderline at all. ATA33 is a couple of product cycles
later. ATA33 didn't exist at the time so there were no shipping
chipsets that supported ATA33 in 1996 - or that were upgraded to that
via BIOS update.

It was early '97 when ATA33 hit the streets. In '96,
doubtful OEMs had anything to ship yet but it's close- a few
months could easily be the difference enough to cover a
mistake in estimation of system age.

It is true there was no bios update to gain ATA33 though,
was always in inherant chipset feature (or not).

 

[william729]

I am not like some, I have not owned very many puters. My first was i
98. It had win98. Pentium II 450. It was ATA100. Not 66, not 33. I
doesn't seem hard for me to believe that 33 was out just 2 year
earlier. My system, could only recognize something in the 63GB range
To overcome that limitaion, I had to use a PCI card that came with m
120GB HD.

I only offer a timeline. I wish the best for David

Slick Willi

 

[Curious George]

On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:03:21 GMT, Curious George



The typical 2GB drive was split fairly, a lot of ATA33 but
plenty that weren't.
Nope.

Perhaps considering very early 1-2GB
drives, not ATA33 yet but these drives weren't going to be
appearing in the typical OEM "PC" boxes. Taking Western

I'm considering a 1996 low end Tier1 OEM PC i.e. HP Pavillion. Heaven
knows what you're spinning your wheels about.

Digital for example, Caviar 32500 was MW DMA only but
thereafter (including ~ 2GB models) ATA33.

Lying, as always
http://tinyurl.com/kvug7

It wasn't two years, '97 brought Pentium 2 and the typical

P2 was initially released May 1997. It was not instantaneously
dominant among low end, off-the shelf desktops. We're more
realistically talking second half or more like last quarter 1997, &
1998.

Intel chipset board from '97 was updated to support up to
128GB. TX chipset came prior to that, early '97 and had
ATA33 for skt 7.

Irrelevant to the machine in question. Show me a 1996 low-end OEM PC
that was upgraded so dramatically.

It was definitely 1997-8. in 1998 you could still buy a Pentium MMX
as described from Micron, Dell, HP, etc. as a low end desktop. I
know, that's when I bought one for a relative.

Not all OEM boards perhaps, but then in that era OEM boards
were quite likely to stray not so far from retail boards and
in some cases could be tricked into accepting retail board
bios if there were no other recourse.

Chances of using different BIOS to get 40gig UATA support = near 0
Chances of using different BIOS to kill an old board = very high.

Updated after '99, likely not, BUT that doesn't necessarily
mean the capacity wasn't updated previously. Often bios

It does for 40 gig support.

details are sketchy with OEMs, capacity support increases
may not be mentioned. That's not to imply it's any more or
less likely, only that it isn't really to be taken for
granted either way.

Based on experience of the products in question it is highly unlikely.

That might be applicable in specific circumstances, maybe
even this one, but isn't nearly a universal truth. Above

It is a good generalization nonetheless.

example of '97 and P2 boards, did have drive capacity
support updated quite significantly. Take for example
Atlanta, AL440LX. Incredibly common OEM board.

Again another example irrelevant to circa 1996/Pentium Classic low-
end, off-the-shelf, Tier1 OEM PC i.e. HP Pavillion.

 

[Curious George]

Feverishly... LOL.
I take each post one at a time.

Kony, Kony, Kony. You posted the same argument twice on the same day
when you know I've been filtering you for months. That wreaks of
desperation.

When you're fudging a bit,
don't be surprised to see replies.

Whose fudging what exactly? I'll shit myself if he finds a BIOS
update that fully supports an UATA 40gig drive.

It was early '97 when ATA33 hit the streets. In '96,
doubtful OEMs had anything to ship yet but it's close- a few
months could easily be the difference enough to cover a
mistake in estimation of system age.

I don't remember when exactly in 1997 it was but AFAIK there were no
Pentium Classic machines shipping with ATA33. I seem to remember it
being closer to 1998 that tangible U33 products became common. And if
we're comparing a machine from early 1996 to sometime limited arrival
of ATA33 sometime in 1997 the comparison can be over a year.

It is true there was no bios update to gain ATA33 though,
was always in inherant chipset feature (or not).

So why are you wasting your breath here?

 

[kony]

Nope.

LOL. I have about 4 dead WD drives here that did, I keep
the PCBs for spare/emergency/whatever.
Try again.

I'm considering a 1996 low end Tier1 OEM PC i.e. HP Pavillion. Heaven
knows what you're spinning your wheels about.

Try facts. Fact is you're wrong. I have the drives here
and am laughing at you.

Lying, as always
http://tinyurl.com/kvug7

As I wrote but you were too dense to grasp, there were BOTH,
pre-ATA33 (I wrote MW DMA, which the drives you linked do
support), and then the successor did support ATA33.
Two strikes.
Try again.

P2 was initially released May 1997. It was not instantaneously
dominant among low end, off-the shelf desktops. We're more
realistically talking second half or more like last quarter 1997, &
1998.

Did I write "instantaneously dominant"? Nope.
It was a nice try but you are wasting time. Fact is, just
as much as Pentium classic can be described as '96, so can
May 97 be described as less than two years later.

Irrelevant to the machine in question. Show me a 1996 low-end OEM PC
that was upgraded so dramatically.

You never heard of anything buying a new hard drive?
Get out more- really.

It was definitely 1997-8. in 1998 you could still buy a Pentium MMX
as described from Micron, Dell, HP, etc. as a low end desktop. I
know, that's when I bought one for a relative.

It would be silly to buy a Pentium MMX in '98, K6-2 stomped
it at lower prices for anything but highly floating point
dependant operations.

'97, sure, never claimed otherwise. Either way, '97 is one
year, not two... as I already mentioned. So you could buy
one in '98 too... bet you could buy a Pentium Classis today
too if you try really hard. Fact is, '98 saw Super 7, BX,
and non-super 7 was just old surplus that OEMs couldn't get
rid of once P2 had been released and K6-2 took the rest of
the market.

Chances of using different BIOS to get 40gig UATA support = near 0
Chances of using different BIOS to kill an old board = very high.

So you don't know how to assess risks in order to prevent
"very high chance"... ok.

Chance of a pre-TX board being updated to support 40GB is
indeed low. We don't necessarily have to care though, 32GB
is a useful target but so far all you've been doing is
guessing rather than relying on facts. Real research is key
here, not hand waving about what you believe was typical.

It does for 40 gig support.

True. See above how it doesn't necessarily matter.
If your system didn't support 6GB memory, would you
hopelessly give up or install the 1GB you actually needed?
Similar applies- we don't have to hit 40GB exact, any
increase is free when the issue is how much of a drive can
be used rather than

Based on experience of the products in question it is highly unlikely.

That could be true, and at the same time it might be
unlikely a newer board had a capacity increase added, and
yet it did. Where's the split making it not worth checking?
I tend to think it's right about where the OP is now- during
the process of considering a drive replacement.

It is a good generalization nonetheless.


Again another example irrelevant to circa 1996/Pentium Classic low-
end, off-the-shelf, Tier1 OEM PC i.e. HP Pavillion.

Yet relevant to the overgeneralized extensions you made.