[Dave_bangkok]

Hi all,

I hope someone can answer my question, I am looking to add an additional HD to an old system that I have, it has a Jetway 663AS mobo (running XP pro), bios dated 12/2001 (this is the latest bios revision), the system has only a 20gb HD in and I need to upgrade, what would the maximum size HD that it would recognise on the IDE port?, my other option is to add a sata pci card and sata drive, would this option allow me to add a bigger HD removing any bios limit to HD size, say 200gb and be recognised by windows as full capacity?

Thank you in advance

Dave

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The 32GB bios limitation, as a general guideline, doesn't affect relatively recent systems, it kind of started to disappear around the turn of the century.

Your system, according to a post from somebody else using the same board on a different site, will see a 40Gb drive. If it can see a 40Gb drive, it'll see anything up to 137Gb at least.

As to whether it'll accept a SATA drive - it'll fit BUT it depends if the BIOS has any capability to boot off a SATA drive connected to a SATA PCI Card. This was a really fussy grey area at one point because it'll be seen as an external device. A lot of older boards insist on only booting off devices directly plugged into the board as they can't see a way of booting from anything else. Some will do it, but most won't.

[Neil Jones]

The 32GB bios limitation, as a general guideline, doesn't affect relatively recent systems, it kind of started to disappear around the turn of the century.

Your system, according to a post from somebody else using the same board on a different site, will see a 40Gb drive. If it can see a 40Gb drive, it'll see anything up to 137Gb at least.

As to whether it'll accept a SATA drive - it'll fit BUT it depends if the BIOS has any capability to boot off a SATA drive connected to a SATA PCI Card. This was a really fussy grey area at one point because it'll be seen as an external device. A lot of older boards insist on only booting off devices directly plugged into the board as they can't see a way of booting from anything else. Some will do it, but most won't.

[Dave_bangkok]

Thanks for your reply Neil, thats just about answered what i needed to know, regarding the sata drive, it wouldn't be used to boot from, i would keep the original 20gb one in, and just add a sata card & drive, so there wouldnt be no worries on that score.

Thanks again

regards

Dave