Settle A Bet

[rrsg1]

I want to install a new 300 gig HD. I was told by a tech friend that you can install it and even though the mobo will only see 137 gig of it. You can view it and make it one large drive afterwards in the computer management  settings.  

Any truth to this ? I was always under the impression that you have to install it as one complete drive in the begining of the install.

it is a Maxtor drive and Asus Mobo with Intel CPU.

[mattmag]

i think it depends on whether or not your bios supports 48 bit lba

[GX1_Man]

It depends which ASUS motherboard and you didn't give a model number. They make several.

[Bee]

I want to install a new 300 gig HD. I was told by a tech friend that you can install it and even though the mobo will only see 137 gig of it. You can view it and make it one large drive afterwards in the computer management settings.  
Any truth to this?

Yes.  This limitation was removed on updating the WinXP -- assuming you are using WinXP and the NTFS file management system; I don't know the setups in other OSs -- with an update collection at the beginning of last year, then in September, this was all incorporated in the Service Pack 2.  So, if your WinXP is up-to-date, you can just ignore this OS anomaly.  You don't have to do anything either, the OS simply treats it as if it never existed.

I was always under the impression that you have to install it as one complete drive in the begining of the install.

No need to take any special measure to deal with this anomaly at all.  Two months ago, I added a Samsung SpinPoint 400GB hard disk as a 'slave' to the existing, single 'master' drive, a Maxtor 160GB drive.  It was a simple, plug-and-play precedure, separate from the original install months ago of WinXP (with the Maxtor), and was completely successful without a hitch the first time I tried.  WinXp recognized it immediately.  On the Disk Management screen, the extra 400GB were added on the 160GB as an extension in the graphic display.  I subsequently set up and formatted this extension into 3 partitions for use as storage spaces for my document archives.  These are accessible from the system partition, in my case the C: drive, so now the two hard disk are seen as one big continuous memory space on a single disk.

--
Bee.

[My computer setup: Gigabyte GA-7DXE/AMD 1.4GHz/256MB/Integrated audio/GeForce 4400/Maxtor 160GB + Samsung 400GB/Best Data moderm.]

[GX1_Man]

400 gigs for document storage? That's a lot of pages.

[Bee]

400 gigs for document storage? That's a lot of pages.

Yes, I know.  I've always wanted a large capacity HD, you see.  Initially, my computer came with 40GB.  Then within 12 months, it failed possibly due to over heating.  The next one was a 80GB.  Then I learned more about computing and had amassed a lot of bookmarks, copies in PDF of all, well nearly all, maners of things including the user manuals of different gadgets and appliances, and even reference books for I'd found it very easy to search for a specific item, instruction, or explanation using the search facility in the PDF reader.  So the volume exploded!  I changed to a 160GB some 3 years ago.  When some partitions on it had come down to less than 1GB remaining, I looked around and it was at this stage Samsung SpinPoint came on the scene with 400GB.  I think this will last me a lot longer!  By the way, this SpinPoint is really quiet and runs only luke warm, unlike the Maxtor, which when running a protracted task, say, the Grisoft's AVG anti-virus, becomes so hot that my testing finger has to be quickly withdrawn after about 10 seconds!  I have been looking for a hard disk fan or even a HD water cooler (part of a new water cooling setup for the whole computer I have been thinking about for a while now).  

--
Bee.