Hard drive travails

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Posted By
Phosphor
Aug 12, 2003
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451
Replies
8
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Closed
I was excited about installing my new 160 gig hard drive until last night when I discovered that if it is bigger than something like 137 gig, I have to install a controller card, do the master-slave thing, install new drivers, etc., etc., etc. It seems that Windoz doesn’t support bigger than 137 gig. Also, the instructions say that the Bios may not support it. I think this should be written in very big letters right on the front of the package! When I installed my secondary 10 gig hard drive I just popped it in! I suppose most of you already knew this, but I wanted to warn any newbies, like myself, that if they want a simple install, they should stick with a hard drive that is smaller than 137 gig. I would exchange it, but I just sent in the rebate yesterday.

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DOMTEK
Aug 12, 2003
<http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_win98.html>

<http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_win2000.html>

You should be able to set the new drive on a controller card as a master drive. When these "larger than 137GB drives" first started coming out they came with controller cards for just that reason. I agree this should be explained on the package for those who don’t know it, but they haven’t kept quiet about it either. It isn’t just a windows issue either.
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Phosphor
Aug 12, 2003
Thanks for the links Domtek. I have printed it out for reference. I anticipate spending about four hours to accomplish this task……if I’m lucky! I am not a techy, and all these techy terms have me nervous. I am planning to retain my "C" drive (10 gig) as the primary drive, containing the existing operating system (Windows 2000 Professional)and adding the 160 gig as storage. Is this way preferable to using them the other way around?
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Phosphor
Aug 12, 2003
Yes, you are right about installing with the floppy. Regarding the partitions, the instructions say that unless I create partitions smaller than 137 gig, defrag and some other disk utilities won’t work correctly. So I will be creating partitions. Thanks for your help. 🙂
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Phosphor
Aug 14, 2003
To anyone who cares:

I successfully installed my hard drive last night. It took about five hours. Many challenges. Works good. I do have a question, though, about the ribbon cables:
In general, is it better to connect both the master and slaves to the existing ribbon cable coming off the motherboard, leaving the ATA controller card in its slot, but with no wires connected to it?

Or, is it better to connect one drive to the original ribbon cable coming off the motherboard and one drive to the ATA controller card?

Or, is it better to connect both drives to the ATA controller card?

SIDENOTE: The 512 Ram that BESTBuy said "works with both PC100 and PC133" doesn’t! I will have to exchange it today.
EP
Eric Purkalitis
Aug 14, 2003
If you don’t have anything connected to your controller card you don’t need it installed in your system. It used to be that controller cards offered a performance boost, but now they are usually only needed if they support some specialized hardware or you need to install more than 4 IDE devices. Most motherboards have two IDE connectors, each controlling a master and a slave device (hence 4 devices). If you need more than 4 drives, you’ll need the controller card. BTW don’t crimp the ribbon cables. It’s unlikely, but they can affect performance.

As far as RAM (thought hard drives confusing), check your system about memory configurations. Usually you have to install RAM in matching pairs, ie two 512mb simms, not one 512 and one 256. You might try Computers.com < http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6603_7-5021157-1.html?legacy=cn et&tag=st.cn.sr1.ssr.tr_memory> for some help. Also check some online shops like computers4sure for an online memory configurator. That can at least help to determine what kind of RAM you need.
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DOMTEK
Aug 14, 2003
You probably didn’t need the ata controller card since you partitioned the drive so that the partitions were smaller than 137 GB.

You don’t need to match the ram in size. I would probably put the 512 stick in the first slot, and the other in the second slot. Did you go into the motherboard bios and make sure that it was set to 133? Are both pieces of ram 133? If one is 133 and the other is 100 it will probably default to 100.

You did not say if you built the computer yourself or if it is a dell or a compaq or what. Those manufactures have proprietary stuff built in and sometimes you can only add so much ram and if the computer is old enough it may not even take pc133 sdram.

You need your main operating system on the primary connector on the motherboard. Also you should have cd player connected to the motherboard too, in case you need to boot from a cd. If you keep the controller card I would hook the other hard drive to it as a lone master drive. If it is on the same cable as a cd drive or a slower hard drive that will slow up its performance.
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Phosphor
Aug 14, 2003
Thanks guys for your interest. The computer is a Gateway, about four years old. I have been very happy with it. I think it has a pentium 2, but not sure.

The way I have it set up now is that the controller card is installed, but with nothing hooked up to it. I have the two hard drives connected to the original motherboard ribbon cable. It seems that I couldn’t get the new hard drive to work unless I actually had the controller card installed, even though nothing is hooked up to it.

I’m not sure what the cd’s are connected to, but it must be another ribbon cable going to the motherboard.

As far as the bios: the hard drive (Western Digital) came with a floppy that included something called "Easy Bios". I installed that, and everything worked!

The ram issue was caused by the new stick having only one cutout in the plastic part, whereas the old ones have two. Because of this, I couldn’t push it into the slot.

I am thinking that since it works, I will probably leave it the way it is. Thanks for the link about RAM. It is interesting.
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Eric Purkalitis
Aug 15, 2003
Yikes Gateway PII, I had one of those. Good luck getting RAM. I couldn’t find it the year after they stopped making the model.

You might actually have to use the controller card. I’m not sure that the motherboard’s bios would recognize the newer drives. This could be a situation too, where you might get better performance off the card.

What OS are you using?

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