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Robert Stewart · Guest

I am wanting to replace my secondary internal hard drive. I found a Maxtor
300GB ATA/133 drive and was wondering if this would work on the K7S5A Pro
mobo? I am currently running a Hitachi Deskstar Ultra ATA/100 82.3GB. Can
I use the ATA/133? If I can am I getting the full benefit of using ATA/133?

Thanks
Rob

Robert Stewart · Guest

I don't know if this matters, but the Maxtor that I mentioned in the
previous message is listed as Ultra ATA/133.

"Robert Stewart" <Canonman@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
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robm · Guest

manual says only supports
UltraDMA 33/66/100

of course the manual has some mistakes as well

U will need to use the 80 conductor cable to get 66/100/(133 ?)

I thing the BIOS will detect and say 300Mb as identifier but none of the HD
specs will be put into the user defined drive properties of BIOS i think you
will see LBA- ON in the BIOS

you will need OS that supports large drives

If using W2K and it says drive is 137 Mb ?? (or close) then you will need at
least SP (2-3-4) ? and to set the LBA to 48 bits manually in registry. M$
has a KB###### article on how to do this, just search for "Enable LBA 48
bit" on MS web site, the article gives some cautions though

HTH

"Robert Stewart" <Canonman@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
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Brian Campbell · Guest

No, it will, not work on the motherboard's IDE controller because of the
137 gig limit. However, if you buy a PCI IDE controller for this
motherboard, you can hook up any hard drive. They are pretty chep, around
$20.

Robert Stewart (Canonman@triad.rr.com) wrote:
: I am wanting to replace my secondary internal hard drive. I found a Maxtor
: 300GB ATA/133 drive and was wondering if this would work on the K7S5A Pro
: mobo? I am currently running a Hitachi Deskstar Ultra ATA/100 82.3GB. Can
: I use the ATA/133? If I can am I getting the full benefit of using ATA/133?

: Thanks
: Rob

robm · Guest

a separate ata133 controler is good solution as you get ata133 support

but there are several reports of succesful use of 160-200 mb HD with the
k7s5a pro board which can be read about at these links plus i have a 160 mb
drive

http://tinyurl.com/3d7tc

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup/browse_thread/thread/8e0d8fd9cf3b331a/911b00f80d7ca6c6?lnk=st&q=k7s5a+pro+hd+limit&rnum=1&hl=en#911b00f80d7ca6c6

The issue is BIOS function and OS function. The BIOS is an issue at boot
time and the boot drive size can not exceed the BIOS size limit plus the
boot drive partition can not fall outside the BIOS size limit but once
booted the OS takes over HD management and will recognize the rest of the
drive if OS supports the HD capacity.

for W2K you need a particular SP3 ? level and enable LBA 48 bit support bla
bla

if you find an error with these points and posts then please let me know so
that i can save myself some future problems

as i have...

K7S5a Pro v5.0
W2k sp4
160Gb WD

"Brian Campbell" <aa356@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
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Robert Stewart · Guest

Sorry, I should have been a little more thorough in my information. Below
is what the mobo manual lists as features.

Onboard IDE Channels:
- Primary and Secondary PCI IDE channels.
- Support for PIO (programmable input/output) modes.
- Support for Multiword DMA modes.
- Support for Bus Mastering and Ultra DMA 33/66/100 modes.

I am using Windows XP Pro with an 80GB Hitachi Deskstar Ultra ATA/100 and a
60GB Western Digital 40pin EIDE (pulled from WD site using drives part
number
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=711&p_created=1037284926); I
am unsure of the rest of the specifics for this secondary drive. I would
like to replace the 60GB with the 300GB and move the 60GB to a USB
external drive enclosure. In the previous message, robm mentions an "80
conductor cable", what's the deal with that. Without opening my case, I'm
pretty sure that I am using 80 pin cables now. Thank you for the response
and I hope that this information will help.

"Brian Campbell" <aa356@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
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tcsenter · Guest

There are numerous reports on the K7S5A Motherboard Forum (EZ Board)
successfully using 160GB and larger drives (up to 200GB reported) with
the latest BIOS, and the BIOS reports the full capacity. ECS claims on
its HDD capacity support page that drives "up to 250GB" are supported
on the K7S5A V3.1, though 160GB is given for K7S5A PRO.

160GB drive exceeds the 28-bit ATA addressing limitation, so in theory,
if 160GB drive works, the BIOS and IDE/ATA controller support 48-bit
LBA. If V3.1 officially supports 'big drives', V5.0 certainly should.

vincenzo musico · Guest

you should also consider an external hd enclousure they sell for as little
as $30 at new egg .com and they work with usb2, so you can keep the
secondary hard drive and have an external drive.

Brian Campbell · Guest

My 2 extra cents. ATA133 is a marketing term, based on no real
performance boost. Truth be know, it is the rare drive that can surpass
even ata66 speed, so there is no penalty with ata100, ata133 will work on
ata100 hardware no problem. ATA66 100 and 133 use the 80 connector cable

USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures are nice, but you need to load up a dos
driver to get usb2.0 speed. I forget if the K7S5A gives you a choice of a
USB drive in the boot menu, someone hopefully can confirm that.

There is also the option to use special software from the hard drive maker
that allows you to use larger drives on older bioses. Sadly, this
solution has a reputation of being flakey, and is not recommended.

That leaves my original solution, the PCI IDE card. You can get one that
autoboots the drive from the card, which allows you to free up the 60 for
other purposes, Only downsides is it is $20, and it takes up a PCI slot,
but you got tons of those.

vincenzo musico (vinny0505@verizon.net) wrote:
: you should also consider an external hd enclousure they sell for as little
: as $30 at new egg .com and they work with usb2, so you can keep the
: secondary hard drive and have an external drive.

Mick Sitton · Guest

"Brian Campbell" <aa356@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
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uddarts · Guest

"" wrote:

Robert Stewart · Guest

Well, judging from the information here and what I have been able to find on
the internet, it seems that this board is too limiting for the 300GB drive
that I was wanting to use. I have been wanting a good reason to go ahead
and upgrade the board and the processor. I think that I might go ahead and
move up to a ASUS mobo with a AMD 64 bit processor and then go for the
larger drive. I would like to thank everyone for the information and help.

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