[NTLUG:Discuss] Hard drive question

[Fred James]

  Someone from Unicore (appearently they own Award now) is suppose to 
contact me within the next day or two, about upgrading the BIOS - I sent 
them the request.
Is that (whether the bios ... will recognize a hd that large) a question 
they should (and could be expected) to answer?
I've never upgraded a BIOS before - big issue? - easy? - safe? -risky?
Is BIOS even an issue if I get a PCI ATA/100 IDE card?


JM5379 at sbcglobal.net wrote:

>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
>>
>>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

-- 
small is beautiful



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