[NTLUG:Discuss] Hard drive question

[JM5379@sbcglobal.net]

one other thing to consider is whether the bios on your m/b will
recognize a hd that large.


--- Original Message ---
From: Fred James <fredjame at concentric.net>
To: discuss at ntlug.org
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Hard drive question

>If it makes a difference, it is a 120 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM - 
>couldn't find anything that said it was incompatible, though I
did see 
>that it might want to be on its own IDE.
>Space is more the issue for me than speed, but I am sure I
wouldn't mind 
>having both.
>Not looking at RAID just yet.
>I'll look into a PCI card.
>Thank you.
>
>Daniel Hauck wrote:
>
>> In general, I would say everything should be just fine.  But I
don't 
>> know how large your drive is.  The ATA/100 mode most likely
will not 
>> be used and I have had only rare instances where compatibility 
>> problems surfaces from that and these were limited to one
drive not 
>> wanting to work when connected to the same controller as
another.  You 
>> don't mention the capacity of the ATA/100 drives so I can't
comment on 
>> that.  But if you want access to the speed you want, I would
recommend 
>> buying a PCI controller that supports the speed.  If you can
find one 
>> that does only ATA/100 you will find it will be cheap.  I
picked one 
>> up from CompUSA for like $10.  It worked nicely too... running
a Linux 
>> software RAID on it.  (There's some trivia associated with
that too -- 
>> it seems that the Promise Fastrak 100 controller is merely a
software 
>> RAID controller in the first place -- I discovered that when I
wanted 
>> to use my Promise RAID controller with my RedHat 7.3 and they
wouldn't 
>> supply the drivers soon enough... I looked into it and finally 
>> realized that it's all driven by software.  I went out to find
a PCI 
>> controller (Maxtor ATA/100) and realized that the Maxtor and the 
>> Fasttrak 100 were IDENTICAL!!!  The only difference was the
BIOS on 
>> board!)
>>
>>  
>>
>> Anyway... I guess I'm going off in a different direction... it's 
>> 06:30... go figure.
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>>     ----- Original Message -----
>>
>>     From: Fred James <mailto:fredjame at concentric.net>
>>
>>     To:Discuss North Texas Linux Users Group
<mailto:discuss at ntlug.org>
>>
>>     Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 06:18
>>
>>     Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Hard drive question
>>
>>
>>     Will I be able to run an ATA/100 hard drive on my 1998
motherboard?
>>     Would upgrading the BIOS be of any benefit?
>>     Does upgrading the BIOS dangerous in terms of OS and data
already
>>     on the hard drive?
>>
>>     Elitegroup P6BX-A+ motherboard
>>     Award BIOS v4.51PG
>>
>>     (the following information is from:
>>    
<http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/193/1/> )
>>
>>     The specifications of the P6BX-A+ are as follows:
>>
>>         * Chipset: Intel 440BX processor
>>         * CPU: Intel Celeron, Pentium II & Pentium III
>>         * Bios: Award
>>         * RAM: 3 DIMM - Max 768MB
>>         * Slot: 2 ISA, 5 PCI, 1 ISA/PCI shared and 1 AGP
>>
>>         I/O:
>>
>>         * One - EPP/ECP mode parallel port
>>         * Two - 16550 high-speed serial I/O ports
>>         * Supports 360K~2.88M Byte, 3 Mode FDDs or LS120
>>         * Dual PCI IDE interfaces - PIO mode 4, DMA Mode 2,
Ultra DMA 33
>>         * PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse connectors
>>         * ATX Power Supply Connector
>>         * Two USB connectors
>>
>>-- 
>>small is beautiful
>>
>
>-- 
>small is beautiful
>
>