Member Avatar for viperman224

Specs:

MotherBoard: Asus P2B-F
Processor: Intel Pentium III clocking at 450mhz
Hard Drives: 40gig WD (master) 60 gig maxtor (extra)
RAM: 512 megs of PC-100
CD-Roms: sony 48x/24x/48x cd-burner, 16x Matshita (spell?) dvd-rom
Extra Goodies: tons

My question is will my motherboard see a 120 or 160 gig hard drive?
I think I have the latest BIOS update. My dad thinks the 60 gig hard drive is the max. Is this true or can I a 80, 120, 160 or higher into my computer?


this is the drive I'd like to buy

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by TallCool1

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Short version for : the P2B‑F is an older Intel/BX‑era board and many BIOSes from that era are limited by the 28‑bit LBA ceiling (about 137.4 GB). That means a 160 GB drive may be seen correctly by the motherboard’s BIOS or appear truncated to ≈137 GB depending on firmware/BIOS support. Check the board’s BIOS detection first; ASUS published manuals and BIOS updates for the P2B‑F if a vendor update exists. (en.wikipedia.org)

Practical check (quick): install the drive, power up, enter BIOS/Setup and look at the primary IDE detection. If the BIOS reports the full 160 GB, the board’s firmware is OK. If it reports ~137 GB, check the P2B‑F BIOS release notes and version on ASUS’s support page and consider an official BIOS update only if the changelog mentions “large disk” or similar — follow ASUS’s flashing instructions exactly and back up first. (asus.com)

Windows 2000 note (important): Windows 2000 needs Service Pack 3 (or later) and the ATAPI registry flag enabled to work safely with >137 GB ATAPI drives. After SP3+ you must add the registry value shown below (then reboot) — doing this without a 48‑bit‑LBA‑capable BIOS can cause corruption, so follow the steps and backup before changing anything. (itprotoday.com)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters
EnableBigLba    REG_DWORD    0x1

If you prefer not to flash or the BIOS has no fix, the other common workaround is to attach the drive to a controller card whose BIOS handles large drives (this was suggested earlier by ). Always image/backup your data before any BIOS flash, drive swap, or registry change, and avoid multibooting with older OSes that lack 48‑bit LBA support. (seagate.com)

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Member Avatar for TallCool1

Specs:

MotherBoard: Asus P2B-F

My question is will my motherboard see a 120 or 160 gig hard drive? I think I have the latest BIOS update. My dad thinks the 60 gig hard drive is the max. Is this true or can I a 80, 120, 160 or higher into my computer?

The short answer? No.

The long answer: probably, if you use a PCI ATAPI controller like those available from Promise or HighPoint. See the manufacturers' literature for details. The other advantage is that the Intel BX chipset is limited to a 66 MHz IDE bus speed, whereas the add-in cards go up to 133 MHz.

You also make no mention of which OS you are running. If it's Windows 98, you will need to run a disk utility in order for Windows to be able to fdisk the drive. There's supposed to be a "super fdisk" out there that can do this without EZ-BIOS, but I haven't found it yet.

Member Avatar for viperman224

Thanks for your help, I am running windows 2000 pro. do you have a rough Idea on how much a card like that would go for?

Member Avatar for TallCool1

Thanks for your help, I am running windows 2000 pro. do you have a rough Idea on how much a card like that would go for?

is but one good-fit example (it looks like HighPoint is a better choice for you than Promise); I'm sure there are others -- you could check . Note that this example is bootable (it has a BIOS of its own), but won't work with ATAPI devices like CD-ROMs. That's OK, you still have the other IDE channels for that purpose...

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