Asus CUV4X-VM and max hard disk size

[Lutrin]

Hi

I need a bigger hard disk than my that I have now (20 gigabytes) but my
question is: what max hard disk size my motherboard (Asus CUV4X-VM)
supports?

thanks in advance for any help

 

[Grinder]

Hi

I need a bigger hard disk than my that I have now (20 gigabytes) but my
question is: what max hard disk size my motherboard (Asus CUV4X-VM)
supports?

thanks in advance for any help

That's a tough call. I'm unable to explicitly find anything for your
motherboard, but the latest BIOS was released in Oct-2001. The ATA-6
standard, which lays out LBA-48 (needed for drives larger than
128GiB/137GB) was released in Dec-2001. It's entirely possible that
last BIOS update (v1004) included LBA-48, but I wouldn't bet upon it.

If I were in your position, I would probably put in a 120GB drive.
They're fairly inexpensive, yet large enough for a workable system and
user space. If you need more storage, and want it in larger volumes,
you can alway pick up an LBA-48 card for about $20.

 

[Paul]

Hi

I need a bigger hard disk than my that I have now (20 gigabytes) but my
question is: what max hard disk size my motherboard (Asus CUV4X-VM)
supports?

thanks in advance for any help

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

sonstige CU... - Serie Aktuelle Final bis einschl. 128 GB
(other) (to inclusively)

Which means, use the last BIOS available, for your CU series
motherboard, and you can have up to a 128GB disk. So a 120GB
disk should work.

For an IDE drive, the hard drive may have a "limit" or "clip"
jumper, which will limit the capacity of the disk to 32GB. If
the drive won't work properly, simply "clip" it with a jumper.

Paul

 

[Lutrin]

Paul wrote:
[...]

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

sonstige CU... - Serie Aktuelle Final bis einschl. 128 GB
(other) (to inclusively)

Which means, use the last BIOS available, for your CU series
motherboard, and you can have up to a 128GB disk. So a 120GB disk
should work.

[...]
Hi Paul

Thanks very much for your help! but BIOS updating may be dangerous or
it's ever a safe operation?
assuming I have a fear of updating bios, the max hard disk size is...?

For an IDE drive, the hard drive may have a "limit" or "clip" jumper,
which will limit the capacity of the disk to 32GB. If the drive won't
work properly, simply "clip" it with a jumper.

[...]
Right! thanks again. this *limit* is the last jumper position behind
hard drive? (IV)

 

[Lutrin]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

That's a tough call. I'm unable to explicitly find anything for your
motherboard, but the latest BIOS was released in Oct-2001. The
ATA-6 standard, which lays out LBA-48 (needed for drives larger than
128GiB/137GB) was released in Dec-2001. It's entirely possible that
last BIOS update (v1004) included LBA-48, but I wouldn't bet upon
it.

[...]

So, is not sure that after updating, my bios is enabled to support these
disks

If I were in your position, I would probably put in a 120GB drive.

[...]
for few money, I may buy a 80 gigabytes IDE hard drive (maxtor
STM380215A). this disk capacity is fully supported also without updating
bios?

thanks for your help

 

[Paul]

Paul wrote:
[...]

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

sonstige CU... - Serie Aktuelle Final bis einschl. 128 GB
(other) (to inclusively)

Which means, use the last BIOS available, for your CU series
motherboard, and you can have up to a 128GB disk. So a 120GB disk
should work.

[...]
Hi Paul

Thanks very much for your help! but BIOS updating may be dangerous or
it's ever a safe operation?
assuming I have a fear of updating bios, the max hard disk size is...?

For an IDE drive, the hard drive may have a "limit" or "clip" jumper,
which will limit the capacity of the disk to 32GB. If the drive won't
work properly, simply "clip" it with a jumper.

[...]
Right! thanks again. this *limit* is the last jumper position behind
hard drive? (IV)

I don't really know what the limit previous to the 128GB one would be.
It could be 32GB but I'm not sure. These are the two links for older
systems and hard drive limits. The second link contains references to
a 32GB limit, so that could be it.

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Check with your hard drive manufacturer, for jumper information.
The label affixed to the drive, may not contain all possible jumper
options. And sometimes the information is hard to find on the website,
especially if the drive is an older one and no longer in production.

Some drives have an "OEM specification" document, and one of those
has a pretty complete treatment of the hard drive. If that is missing,
sometimes there will be a single web page with jumper information.

If the current web site has no information, you can go back in time,
by using web.archive.org .

http://web.archive.org/*/http://www.seagate.com

BIOS updating can be dangerous, but you can also recover from a
bad flash, by using a BIOS chip company like badflash.com . If
you are that concerned about flashing the BIOS, you could order
a new chip from them, with the new version of the BIOS flashed into
the chip. Unplug the old chip and plug in the new one. That
is one option.

A second option, is to buy a PCI IDE card, and connect the larger
drive to it. That is a reasonably safe option, in the sense that,
the PCI IDE card either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't work,
you can just unplug it. This is an example of a card uses to
bypass the 128GB limit, plus it will allow faster UDMA transfer
rates to work in an older computer.

PROMISE ULTRA133 TX2 PCI IDE 66M PCI Controller Card - OEM $34
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102007

Such a PCI IDE card is mentioned in this document.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

Paul

 

[Paul]

Paul wrote:
[...]

interesting and complete answer. thanks, but, i want ask you a little
final question... to bypass these problems, may I buy an USB external
hard disk? or the disk size is ever problematic? in this case also I
have an hard disk limit with older motherboards or not?

Sure. USB is an option. Do you have a USB2 PCI card ?
USB2 will give a faster transfer rate.

What OS are you using ? USB2 is supported on WinXP SP1
and Win2K SP4.

http://www.usbman.com/USB 2 News.htm

If you use USB 1.1, the transfers will be slower.
(About 1MB/sec or so.)

The advantage of the internal disk, is you can boot
the computer with it.

Paul

 

[Lutrin]

Paul wrote:
[...]

interesting and complete answer. thanks, but, i want ask you a little
final question... to bypass these problems, may I buy an USB external
hard disk? or the disk size is ever problematic? in this case also I
have an hard disk limit with older motherboards or not?

 

[Lutrin]

Paul wrote:
[...]

Sure. USB is an option. Do you have a USB2 PCI card ? USB2 will give
a faster transfer rate.

What OS are you using ? USB2 is supported on WinXP SP1 and Win2K SP4.

[...]
Windows Millennium Edition unfortunately. but i must use it, why I have
a Millennium licence. however, it's important tranfer and backupping
data, in one way or other

 

[Grinder]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

That's a tough call. I'm unable to explicitly find anything for your
motherboard, but the latest BIOS was released in Oct-2001. The
ATA-6 standard, which lays out LBA-48 (needed for drives larger than
128GiB/137GB) was released in Dec-2001. It's entirely possible that
last BIOS update (v1004) included LBA-48, but I wouldn't bet upon
it.

[...]

So, is not sure that after updating, my bios is enabled to support these
disks

If I were in your position, I would probably put in a 120GB drive.

[...]
for few money, I may buy a 80 gigabytes IDE hard drive (maxtor
STM380215A). this disk capacity is fully supported also without updating
bios?

Probably. There are some BIOSes, though, that have a 32GB limit. Short
of finding a specific discussion of your mainboard and BIOS, you'll just
have to roll the dice. With prices as they are now, an 80GB hard drive
is barely more expensive than a 20GB, if you can find it, so you're not
really risking much. Buy the 80GB, and if your BIOS cannot see its full
extent, use the capacity limit jumper.

 

[Lutrin]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

Buy the 80GB, and if your BIOS cannot see its full
extent, use the capacity limit jumper.

[...]

good idea ;-) *limit jumper* is ever the last? (starting from master)

 

[Grinder]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

Buy the 80GB, and if your BIOS cannot see its full
extent, use the capacity limit jumper.

[...]

good idea ;-) *limit jumper* is ever the last? (starting from master)

What? I'm supposed to remember that stuff? Check you user manual, or the
label on the drive itself. I suppose you should also take care to get
a drive that *has* a capacity limit jumper. I certainly seen a lot of
drives that have them, but I wouldn't guess that it's universal.

 

[Grinder]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

What? I'm supposed to remember that stuff? Check you user manual, or
the label on the drive itself. I suppose you should also take care
to get a drive that *has* a capacity limit jumper. I certainly seen
a lot of drives that have them, but I wouldn't guess that it's
universal.

[...]

My old 20 gigabytes hard drive (samsuns) has 4 jumper position
three free, one, the first, covered by a jumper in master position) Now I'm
looking for a new hard drive with same jumper features. do you you know
if the

HARD DISK MAXTOR 80 GB 7200 RPM MOD.STM380215A

has a limit jumper?

Apparently not:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/maxtor/100435213b.pdf

Of the three 80GB hard drives at newegg, I only see one whose manual
specifically refers to jumpering for a capacity limit:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/7k160/7k160jum.htm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145126

The Maxtor drives in the past with this feature, have all had explicit
Capacity Limit Jumpers (CLJ) I suspect that those Maxtors with only 8
(instead of 10) jumper pins may not have that capability. The Hitachi
manages with only 8, but the setup is not obvious in the way the Maxtors
used to be.

At any rate, it looks as if the capacity limit feature is not as
important, or at least advertised, as it once was. My recommendation to
you is to round up a list of acceptable drives, and contact the
manufacturers to confirm the presence of that feature. Be careful not
to take answers that are just pulled from their ass, as oft they do.

It probably won't matter anyhow. My bet is that your PC can handle
120GB with no pain. I'm almost certain that I have a drive around here
that does have a capacity limiter, so if you get in a jam up, maybe I
can help.

Write back with further developments.

 

[Lutrin]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

What? I'm supposed to remember that stuff? Check you user manual, or
the label on the drive itself. I suppose you should also take care
to get a drive that *has* a capacity limit jumper. I certainly seen
a lot of drives that have them, but I wouldn't guess that it's
universal.

[...]

My old 20 gigabytes hard drive (samsuns) has 4 jumper position
three free, one, the first, covered by a jumper in master position) Now I'm
looking for a new hard drive with same jumper features. do you you know
if the

HARD DISK MAXTOR 80 GB 7200 RPM MOD.STM380215A

has a limit jumper?

 

[Grinder]

Aha, I found the one I have that has a Capacity Limit Jumper. It's a
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB, ST380011A. Which, of course, you
probably won't be able to find to purchase.

http://www.dealtime.com/xGS-st380011a

 

[Grinder]

Also, I'm virtually certain that the Maxtor 6Y080P0 80GB has a cap
limit. I can't explicitly find that in Maxtor/Seagate literature, but I
recall that drive having a limit, and a google image search turns up a
drive with a label describing how to set the cap limit.

I have one of these as well, but it's currently bolted into an xbox,
that's bolted into a under-tv component mount.

 

[Paul]

Grinder wrote:
[...]

What? I'm supposed to remember that stuff? Check you user manual, or
the label on the drive itself. I suppose you should also take care
to get a drive that *has* a capacity limit jumper. I certainly seen
a lot of drives that have them, but I wouldn't guess that it's
universal.

[...]

My old 20 gigabytes hard drive (samsuns) has 4 jumper position
three free, one, the first, covered by a jumper in master position) Now I'm
looking for a new hard drive with same jumper features. do you you know
if the

HARD DISK MAXTOR 80 GB 7200 RPM MOD.STM380215A

has a limit jumper?

That could be a DiamondMax 21 drive. They show "CLJ" or capacity
limit jumper, in the all purpose picture here.

http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/mxo_ata_jumpers.gif

Yet, if you download the product specific manual, there is no mention
of capacity limit, in the jumper section ?

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/maxtor/100435213b.pdf

I would test with the information as shown in the first picture. Install
the third jumper over, to limit the capacity if needed.

Paul