Will it work?

[Clown]

I have an old, old motherboard, that only lets a max of PII 400MHz on it. It has a PII 300MHz in it, and it's running Win2k.

I dunno the exact model number, but its an Intel thingy if that helps.

I'm planning on getting two 160GB drives. What is the likelyhood that they wont work on such an old board? It detects 40GB, but I haven't tried anything over this.

 

[Tom]

I doubt they'd recognise the drives, perhaps you could install SCSI devices on them instead. That way, with a second hand SCSI card (and some SCSI drives from ebay) you could put whatever you liked in there?

 

[RedVenom]

The board might work if its ata100 (lol). The bigger hurdle will be windows.

Get an IDE expansion card for £30 and you won't have any problems (apart from being stupid).

 

[Clown]

Hehe
It's a manky old thing and only takes PC66 ram or something.

What about this Duron 850MHz board? I can check out the motherboard model number when I get home. AT LEAST IT HAS PC133 RAM!!

 

[RedVenom]

Its the IDE controller that counts more than anything.

Just pick up a £30 card and then patch windows up.

 

[xane]

I'd be inclined to give it a go, there was certainly a limit on or about 32Gb for most early motherboards. I had a really old Intel board, a i440BX, and after a BIOS update it recognised my 40Gb easily.

Is yours a Slot or Socket motherboard ? I'd bet on it being an Intel chipset as VIA et al didn't really start making competitive ones until the P3 came out.

 

[Cyfr]

Pick up a £20 motherboard from a shop, would be easier wouldnt it?

 

[RedVenom]

No, because he'd then have to pick up a £20 processor and £20 worth of memory. He has everything he needs, including the OS up and running.

Just apply the reg fix for Win2k, and see if it works. If not, buy an extra card at £30 and solve any woes.

 

[Xavier]

The interface isn't anywhere near as important as the BIOS. The Duron is far more likely to handle drives of that capacity but play safe and go for 120Gb not 160Gb, you can hit a compatibility issue with drives over 137Gb in size with some old BIOSes too y'know.

 

[Clown]

Bah, you can get 160GB drives for round about the same prices as 120GB

 

[RedVenom]

How much? I need some more.

 

[Shovel]

I think I saw a 120GB WD-Spec Edition for around £70 on Micro Direct... it's damned tempting...