HD Max Size Help Needed

[BayouBabe12345]

Hi All,
I need to find out what's the biggest hard drive I can use with an eMachines FIC AM39L (FIC K7M-400A) mother board & an AMD Athlon XP 2700 2.71 gHz?
I've messed up before with an 200+ GB HDD for a different set up & it only supported 157 of it. I don't want it to happen again and end up wasting my money.
Also, I've searched every where and can't even find a manual for the eMachines FIC AM39L or the FIC K7M-400A. I get your basic spec but nothing telling me the HD limits. I need some help here.
Thanks,
BayouBabe12345

[MartyMcFly]

Have you still got that 200Gb drive. It may be, that you could only create a primary partition of 157Gb, and a second partition could be made, and the space regained.

Also what operating system are you using, I have read a few articles, where that is the limitting factor.

I've never heard of a motherboard being a limitting factor in Hard Drives, only RAM. Anyone else know different?

[chrisbliss18]

I've never known RAM to be a limiting factor with how much harddrive space can be addressed. In a broad sense, motherboards can be a limiting factor. In reality, it is the BIOS that limits the space a board can address.

If your motherboard has a BIOS that limits the size that can be addressed on a partition, it is possible that the manufacturer created an updated BIOS that you can flash to in order to add large partition support.

I agree with MartyMcFly. Check your Disk Manager to see if you can format the remaining portion of the harddrive to an additional partition.

[MartyMcFly]

Sry, I meant incompatability of Ram modules with Motherboards as my example.

and...... Welcome to Daniweb Bayoubabe12345.