motherboard supporting hard drive

[Mustafa Khalid]

I have an Intel D815EEA Motherboard, for the Pentium 3. I have windows XP
pro installed, and a 40 GB Hard Drive. I also have a CDRW & DVDROM installed
in the IDE. My question is that can I put in an 80 GB additional hard drive
as well as my existing 40GB one?

I went through the manual for the motherboard, and it says:
"To take advantage of the high capacities typically available today, hard
drives are automatically configured for Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and
to PIO Mode 3 or 4, depending on the capability of the drive."

Also on the intel website, my motherboard (all BIOS versions) was listed
under the heading:
"with the indicated and later BIOS versions, that provide support BIOS
support for greater than 8.4 GB, include: "

I assumed that a stand alone 80 GB can be installed, but can my system hold
both as well as two cd drives?

Also, if it can, what should I see in the hard drive's specs to see if it
will work with my system

Thanks for any help in advance

 

[Dave C.]

I have an Intel D815EEA Motherboard, for the Pentium 3. I have windows XP
pro installed, and a 40 GB Hard Drive. I also have a CDRW & DVDROM installed
in the IDE. My question is that can I put in an 80 GB additional hard drive
as well as my existing 40GB one?

I went through the manual for the motherboard, and it says:
"To take advantage of the high capacities typically available today, hard
drives are automatically configured for Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and
to PIO Mode 3 or 4, depending on the capability of the drive."

Also on the intel website, my motherboard (all BIOS versions) was listed
under the heading:
"with the indicated and later BIOS versions, that provide support BIOS
support for greater than 8.4 GB, include: "

I assumed that a stand alone 80 GB can be installed, but can my system hold
both as well as two cd drives?

Also, if it can, what should I see in the hard drive's specs to see if it
will work with my system

Thanks for any help in advance

Your two obstacles are physical. You need to make sure your case has room
for another drive. You also need the proper dual ide cable to hook it up.
Your motherboard should have TWO ide connectors. Each one can handle two
drives, so you need TWO cables that each have two connectors for drives on
them. You might have that already, but you'll have to open up your case to
find out.

There's a chance that even the latest BIOS for your motherboard might not
recognize the new drive. If your system doesn't recognize the drive right
away, try flashing the motherboard to the latest available BIOS version. If
that doesn't help, you will need a drive overlay program from the
manufacturer of the hard drive. Essentially, this is a program that will
help the new drive send information to the BIOS that the BIOS can handle,
while at the same time it will allow you to partition and format the hard
drive to it's full capacity. Because there is a chance you will need this
overlay program, you should stick to the well-known name brands, such as
Western Digital in particular. Oh, the only specification for your hard
drive that you need to worry about is to make sure it is IDE. -Dave