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Is there a limit on the size of hard drives you can install on a motherboard?

I have a 1ghz system which currently has a 20gb hard drive and I am planning on installing a seagate 80gb ATA hard drive on it. Just wondering if the motherboard restricts how much is installed (i remember reading something like this somewhere). I have checked and yes there is an extra connection wire and power wire available in the system to connect the hard drive. Thanx for the help.

Public Comments

  1. nope your OS determines the max HDD size it recognizes
  2. yes
  3. You shouldn't have a problem. Older BIOS could not handle large hard drives, but most moderm systems are fine. If your system does not properly recognize drive, find your bios manufacturer they will have instructions for flashing the BIOS with latest update.
  4. as far as i know no motherboard has size limitations for hd size, but software begins to have issues over 500gb- outside your range.
  5. I don't know your operating system but Windows 98, Windows 2000 or XP will all allow a drive that size. In addition you can keep your existing drive. If you have Win 98 or Win 2000 you will need to set the jumper on the new drive to make it a slave drive. If you have XP you don't have to worry about it.
  6. You would have to talk to the company that sold you the computer.For me computer stuff is hit and miss.There are jumpers on the drive that have to be positioned correctly.Master and slave connectors.Formatting drives after installing.Are you really using 20gb of drive space? Do you need 80 gb?
  7. Your OS will automatically recongnize when you fix it with mother board..
  8. its mainly down to your hardware and to some degree software ( I say to some degree ) because obviously SP 1 and SP 2 added fixes for recognising large hard drives etc and there are also bios fixes to enable or add on 48 BIT LBA ( Large Block Addressing ) and possibly other things. Do a google search it will tell you more and be more informative !!
  9. It's possible, depending on when the BIOS for your motherboard was written. However, you've got a 20 GB drive (which means you know it'll do at least that big), so at the worst, you'll just have to partition the 80 GB into either 2 or 4 partitions. You'll still be able to use it, though, as long as you enable LBA when you create the partition(s).
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