From: "Hal Trachtenberg" :Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Replacing Hard Drive


> --- John Henry Miller <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> > I have tried to add a 40Gig hard drive to a
> > relatively new motherboard
> > and lost all the data on the existing hard drive!
> > So, I would 2nd the
> > opinion that you make sure everything is backed up.
> > I had my 40 Gig
> > drive working and  just connected my old hard drive
> > and everything was
> > lost!  BACK IT UP!  Luckily I had backed everything
> > up so I was not
> > harmed by it.
> >
> > I also would reccomend a "Promise" IDE controller
> > card rather than a
> > BIOS upgrade.  After having upgraded to a 40 Gig
> > hard drive, I bought
> > one and noticed a significant improvement in
> > perfromance from the IDE
> > controller card.  The speed that it took to copy a
> > 700 Meg file was cut
> > in half so the $30 was well worth it.
> >
> > John H. Miller
> 
> 
> Can somebody please explain what a Promise IDE
> controller has to do with the bios recognizing a hard
> drive larger than 8.4Gb. The Promise IDE controller
> increases the access speed for the drive, but how does
> that effect the detection of the drive if it is too
> large for the older Bios?
> 
> Hal T.
> 
Hal,

The Ultra100 controller cards (Promise or another brand) have an onboard BIOS that supports booting functions, bypassing the limitations of the motherboard BIOS and motherboard controller chipset, providing large capacity IDE support using LBA and the "extended interrupt 13" drive translation technology and supporting drives up to 128Gb.  When you connect a large hard drive to the Promise card, the onboard BIOS of the Promise card translates the drives geometry rather than the BIOS of the motherboard.  You not only get increased speed if the proper cables are used but the ability to access drives up to 128 GB in size.

Mary Wolden

                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>