I need to upgrade an Abit KT7 hard disk

[mydejamail]

I need to upgrade an Abit KT7 hard disk, but I know that some of the
older motherboards have problems with large hard disks. The current
disk in it is 30G IBM hard disk, but I want to go for todays 320G.

If the BIOS isn't compatible with hard disks of this size, will Windows
XP be able to work around it?

I also wonder whether an external USB disk of that size will be alright
with Windows, so that I can still use the current one for programs and
use the external disk for data.

/My Deja

 

[Eric P.]

I need to upgrade an Abit KT7 hard disk, but I know that some of the
older motherboards have problems with large hard disks. The current
disk in it is 30G IBM hard disk, but I want to go for todays 320G.

If the BIOS isn't compatible with hard disks of this size, will Windows
XP be able to work around it?

I also wonder whether an external USB disk of that size will be alright
with Windows, so that I can still use the current one for programs and
use the external disk for data.

/My Deja

Why don't you have a look first on the Abit web pages?
http://www.abit.com.tw/
Or post in the Abit newsgroups?
alt.comp.mainboards.abit
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I need to upgrade an Abit KT7 hard disk, but I know that some of the
older motherboards have problems with large hard disks. The current
disk in it is 30G IBM hard disk, but I want to go for todays 320G.

If the BIOS isn't compatible with hard disks of this size, will Windows
XP be able to work around it?

It's very likely that there will be problems. See also
"Windows XP Does Not Recognize All Available Disk Space"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316505/en-us

I also wonder whether an external USB disk of that size will be alright
with Windows, so that I can still use the current one for programs and
use the external disk for data.

My external USB hard disks are up to 250GB in terms of size (single NTFS
partition) and that's no problem.

[X-Post: 2 Groups]

 

[Yves Leclerc]

If the is no BIOS update to increase the max disk capacity, then you should
look for a PCI ATA/133 adapter card and move the new drive to it. These
adapter cards provide their own BIOSes which should by-pass your motherboard
BIOS limits.

Also, if the new hard drive is SATA based, there are add-on PCI SATA drives
which also should by-pass the motherboard's BIOS limits.