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[goodcow]

I currently have a 200GB Seagate IDE drive installed via a PCI card which is pretty old, and has one of those 128GB drive limits. This is mainly because my case and motherboard combination make it a bitch to plug IDE drives into, so I just opted to continue using the PCI card I had from my old system.

If now, I decide to plug the 200GB drive into the motherboard, so Windows can see all 200GB, will the drive need to be formatted? Will Windows freak out? Will I lose data?

 

[empanada]

I'm guessing you will probably need to reformat to access all 200GB.

 

[COCKLES]

Got to drive manufactuer site.

I bought a 200 GIGER this week that my crusty MB would only see 128GIG (Western Digital -SE) one quick Windows utility patch later from their site and I'm blinging with the full 200GIG monty.

 

[goodcow]

Got to drive manufactuer site.

I bought a 200 GIGER this week that my crusty MB would only see 128GIG (Western Digital -SE) one quick Windows utility patch later from their site and I'm blinging with the full 200GIG monty.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH

I'll check that out later... for now, 20 pages of papers to write.

(Somebody do my papers for me. I'll give you cookies.)

 

[alejob]

I'm guessing you will probably need to reformat to access all 200GB.

Wrong guess.


Either flash your BIOS, use a utility like cockles mentioned(not recomended becuase you'll have a performance hit) or buy a new motherboard.

 

[ChrisReid]

It's also a Windows limitation for the 137 gig thing. If you have SP1 and your motherboard supports large drives, then you should be just fine. Some motherboards continue to have problems with the large drives, so you want to take that into account.

 

[goodcow]

No, the motherboard is new, it can handle 200GB drives, but I bought this drive after I assembled my computer and just plugged it into an old PCI card which can't read over 128GB because it's a bitch to plug IDE device into my motherboard. (it's on the side of it, and my case is small, so I just said fuck it)

I was just worried about needing to format if I did decide to plug the drive into my motherboard to get the unused space.

 

[alejob]

oh, I guess I read wrong. It should work fine if you plug in to the IDE interface on the motherboard. No need to format.

 

[COCKLES]

Wrong guess.


Either flash your BIOS, use a utility like cockles mentioned(not recomended becuase you'll have a performance hit) or buy a new motherboard.

Your right there!

The new 2nd drive (use only for storage of ROMS, Emus, DIVX ect) is slow as fuck. Set it as download target for BitTorrent and it made my system judder like the judderman!! So as alejob pointed out...don't use a patch if your planning on using the drive for your main system drive / Windows.

 

[RaymondCarver]

Cockles, if I were to use one drive for Torrents/ROMS/MP3s/other slow read/write time media, isn't it ok to use an old controller card & a large 5400rpm HD?





OR




Should main system drives be on newer, faster PCI controller cards while the old slow read/write time media drives are plugged into the motheboard?






I don't know what's optimal.

 

[NohWun]

I was just worried about needing to format if I did decide to plug the drive into my motherboard to get the unused space.

Well, if you want to expand the partition from 128GB to 200GB, you'll either need a repartitioning utility, or you'll need to reformat. If you just want to add an additional partition with the remaining capacity, that's easy, and won't require touching the existing 128GB partition.

Partition Manager is one utility that lets you change partitions without reformatting.

And yeah, Windows needs a patch to see over 128GB.

 

[goodcow]

And yeah, Windows needs a patch to see over 128GB.

This is the only part I don't understand... I've had an external 200GB firewire drive for almost two years now, and it worked without a patch on WinXP before SP1, let alone SP2...

 

[NohWun]

I believe that's because it's a limitation of the ATAPI (IDE) driver.