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i hav a P4, Intel 865 GBF motherboard, 2.8 HT GHZ processor, 1024 MB DDR RAM.. wats
the max size of hard disks i can use? provided i hav an empty slot obviously
thanks in advance
It depends on whether your bios is limited to 36bit LBA or or is 48bit LBA compliant. If the latter then there is no "Effective" limit to the drive size you can use since drives of a gazillion GBs haven't been built yet. If it is 36bit then about 120gb is the max you can use.
These numbers aren't exact but the next step up from a 120 exceeds the 36bit limit.
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for more reading on the subject visit www.48bitlba.com
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thanks so much.. that was really helpful..is there any way i can find out if my bios is 36bit LBA or 48bit LBA compliant?
if i go to the bios when i boot my pc (via pressing hte delete button) will i b able to find this? n if yes then in which option?
i m also reading the link u gae me now but please tell me if there is any way 2 find this out
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This was easy to find on the Intel web site.
Your mboard will support any size of drive, at up to ATA100 speeds.
I found this in the FAQ:
"One of the features of the Intel® Desktop Board D865GBF is its ability to support larger ATA/100 capable hard drives with 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) within the BIOS......"You must have XP SP1 or later to support hard drives larger than 137gb (manufacturer's size; 128gb in Windows).
If you have XP with no SP's, you must install SP1 or later (you might as well install SP2) on another hard drive that is smaller than 137gb, then you can recognize a drive larger than 137gb just fine.
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thanks, i hav XP SP 2..so if i use a 40 GB hard drive with SP2 installed i can use another drive of 400 GB right? coz i m not sure wat u meant by ATA speeds>> "Your mboard will support any size of drive, at up to ATA100 speeds."
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FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB.
However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems.
The NTFS file system on the other hand can support drives up to 16 exabytes, in theory, but because partition tables on basic disks (disks that include a master boot record) only support partition sizes up to 2 terabytes, you would need to use dynamic volumes to create NTFS partitions over 2 terabytes in size.
Windows XP Professional manages dynamic volumes in a special database instead of in the partition table, so dynamic volumes are not subject to the 2-terabyte physical limit imposed by the partition table. This is why dynamic NTFS volumes can be as large as the maximum volume size supported by NTFS.
Note: 1XB = 1073741824GB
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If you have SP2 installed on your WinXP, you have nothering to worry about.
Don't worry about the ATA/100 either. It's the maximum speed your motherboard's IDE controller can transfer data to/from the hard drive. It's plenty fast enough for any current drive.
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"the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB."
True but you can partition/format a FAT32 drive to more than 32GB on a win98 system and use them with XP.
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OOOps, sorry Sabertooth, I missed your comment on that.
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The ATA100 rating is a maximum - the hard drives only run that fast in rare circumstances, and it can't be maintained over a longer period of time - it means the data can be transferred as fast as 100mb per second.
Current new IDE hard drives are ATA133 - they will run max ATA100 on your mboard - you probably wouldn't notice the difference between the two except in rare circumstances.
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"If you have SP2 installed on your WinXP, you have nothering to worry about." -posted by ham...
thanks ham, tube n saber....
so in simple terms if i buy 400 GB & use ntfs via windows 98 there shudnt b any issues right? right now i dont need 2 know how it will work but will it work or not?
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Win XP will not let you format a hard drive partition larger than 32gb to anything but NTFS - if you have no objection to that, you can format it in XP. This is what most people do.
Some people prefer to use FAT32 partioning and formatting on the whole drive.
Win XP will let you partition and format FAT32 only if the partition is 32gb or smaller - if it is larger than that, it will only let you use NTFS.
Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME cannot partition, format, or see NTFS partitions.
Win 98 and Win98SE must have an update installed to partition and format a drive larger than 64gb.
Once that update is installed (it updates fdisk).....
Win 98, 98SE, and ME can partition and format and see a FAT32 partition, but I don't think you can do that to more than 128gb.
However, you can use other ways such as using the hard drive manufacturer's utility to partition and format the whole drive partition to FAT32.
Whether you use NTFS or FAT32, Win XP itself leaves a small piece of the drive unpartitioned - at the end of the drive - 8mb or slightly more. If you use other than XP, e.g. Win 98, 98SE, ME, or a hard drive manufacturers utility to prepare the drive, you should leave that little bit unpartitioned at the end of the drive as well.
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 CPU Or Case Problem?
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How much power ?
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