How do I find the largest size harddrive my Motherboard will support?

M

M

I have an old Gateway PC (sold in the UK) and need to replace the harddrive.
How do I find the largest size hard drive the Motherboard will support?

The specs of the machine are (from Belarc Advisor):
1000 megahertz Intel Pentium III
Board: Intel Corporation D815EEA AAA19243-207
BIOS: Intel Corp. EA81510A.15A.0005.P03.0006221853 06/22/2000

I haven't found Gateways web sites both UK and US to be any help. The Intel
website does not recognise the motherboard details.
Thanks in advance.
 
M

Malke

M said:
I have an old Gateway PC (sold in the UK) and need to replace the
harddrive. How do I find the largest size hard drive the Motherboard will
support?

The specs of the machine are (from Belarc Advisor):
1000 megahertz Intel Pentium III
Board: Intel Corporation D815EEA AAA19243-207
BIOS: Intel Corp. EA81510A.15A.0005.P03.0006221853 06/22/2000

I haven't found Gateways web sites both UK and US to be any help. The
Intel website does not recognise the motherboard details.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

The motherboard was probably made specifically for Gateway which is why you
won't find information on it at Intel's website.

I would look on Gateway's site for upgrading your specific model machine or
use Google. I know you said you looked, but I don't know what you looked
*for*. Since you didn't mention the model of the Gateway, I can't do any of
the searching for you. How large a hard drive originally came with the
machine?

Malke
 
J

JS

From the date of manufacture (6/22/2000) and the fact that it's an 815
chipset (like my old Dell) I say your PC does not support 48 bit LBA.
Therefore a 120GB (137GB max) PATA drive is what you can support.

Look for a BIOS update that supports 48 bit LBA or buy a Promise Technology
PCI PATA card: http://tinyurl.com/cp59r
or a SATA PCI card will allow you to support the larger drives for your
Gateway. Note that sometimes you card find a Maxtor drive bundle that comes
with the card.

JS
 
M

M

Thanks to all that have replied so far.
The model number is FED 1000 which isn't listed anyway, date of manufacture
24 Oct 2000, assembled in Ireland which suggests it is a UK specific
machine. It currently has a 30 GB hard drive. A replacement drive of 137
GB is way too small and I would prefer to avoid the PCI card route since it
uses a PCI slot and I have none spare.
I would prefer a BIOS update, unfortunately I can not find anything on the
Gateway website and it appears to be a customised BIOS since it does not
have any manufacturer name like "Award". Also compared to an Asus board I
have in another PC also a 1GHz Pentium 3 it has far fewer options further
indicating that it is customised.
Thanks for the links on the Intel web site. My BIOS string wasn't
recognised so updating would be a bit hit and miss. I couldn't find
anything that stated that any of the updates included support for 48 Bit
Logical Block Addressing.
The best solution so far appears to be the Intel Application Accelerator
which provides support for larger hard drives.
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/sb/cs-009299.htm
This does involve partitioning the drive smaller than 137 GB, installing
Windows, the Intel Application Accelerator and then expanding the partition.
I would like to dual boot the PC with Linux in the future, so for this
reason a BIOS update would be preferable, since I would probably end up
installing Linux past the 137 GB limit.
The ideal solution would be a utility that scan the PC to identify the BIOS
and provides a direct link for an update detailing what the update includes.
I will be glad of all suggestions.
 
G

Glen

I have an 815 chipped board and have 160 GB drive so you are wrong to say
120GB is the max. Even if the chip can't support a monster drive (and I've
never looked at the max supported size) most drive manufacturers provide
software to get past any bios limitations.

What size is the op hoping to install? If there is a size limit and you
wanted bigger why not install 2 x 160 GB drives or 2 x 250 GB drives for
example.
 
D

DL

If as you suspect the mobo is built for Gateway then it is likely the bios
is also, therefore unless they have released an update there is unlikely to
be one.
It is also possible the case layout will not accommodate some other make of
mobo.
I fitted a std size mobo in a Dell case and had to 'customise' ie cut the
case, for the backplate.
 
M

M

I was actually thinking of 400 GB as I want to use the PC as a media Juke
box and dual boot Linux as well.
 
M

M

Does the Promise card require a driver to be loaded during the installation
of Windows (and Linux) like if you have a SCSI card? I recall this is a
complex process. I could probably free up a slot.
 
J

JS

Hey, I have a Dell with an 815 chipset and it will not support the full
160GB, there was not a bios update in my case so I used a Promise card.

JS
 
J

JS

If you are going to install Windows on the large drive then the answer is
yes it requires a driver to be loaded during the install process. You will
see a message during the install to press an F key (F6 if I remember
correctly) to load the driver. The driver is usually on a floppy supplied
with the card, but can also be downloaded from the web site (always get the
latest driver).

JS
 

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