DazV

Running an Aopen M3W Pro motherboard with latest BIOS, yet the computer at work continues to mis-report the hard disk as 136GB instead of 160GB.

This may be a daft question but, for convenience as its a spare drive in PC, I've linked it up as a slave on the secondary controller, and use a standard IDE cable with it. Despite it being a UDMA133 drive - would this cause it to be mis-reported ? I wouldn't think the cable would have anything to do with it, but I'll ask anyway!

Could just be a case of waiting for Aopen to release another BIOS update to accomodate it.

-DV

KF

Often there is a difference in the way that people report capacities.
1 KB = 1024Bytes, but some (particularly hard drive manufacturers) have it as 1000. This will only account for a 14% difference, so a bit shy of the 17% discrepancy you see.
Don't know, but that may be part of it.

EDIT: Hang on, are those percentages anywhere near correct? Where is my calculator...

EDIT: Reckon the difference in counting will actually give about an 8% difference. It's the BIOS, must be Maths


[Edited by KF - 1/30/2002 11:51:12 PM]

[Edited by KF - 1/30/2002 11:55:11 PM]

Andrewza

IIRC theres an IDE limit that drives are now hitting at 136/137GB, the new UDMA133 standard features 48-bit addressing to allow for drives larger than that, but your IDE controller must support it, I don't know of any mobo's yet that have such a controller built in, you can buy then as seperate PCI cards for now though.

Hope that helps,
Andrew

DazV

Andrew - good answer - exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers,
-DV

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

The Abit KR7A-133Raid boards have a Highpoint ATA133 controller built on now.

Cheers,

Nick

Gareth Allan

are the ata100 drives not using a 80 pin cable on the standard 40 pin connector? I have not seen one yet, but it was in the maplin catalogue so most be accurate.....

Gareth

KF

Yeah. What Andrew said

Blame the drink.

DazV

Actually Gareth, the BIOS did warn me that the ATA133 drive I installed "Was not using 80 conductor connection"

Is an 80 pin cable the one with the blue plugs and socket on the mobo ?

Wonder if I put the 80 pin cable in it would make a difference ? Doubt it though.

-DV

Gareth Allan

checked it out, and it is definately a different cable required for ata100, see extract from maplin.co.uk

ATA100 and 66 Hard Disk Compatible Cable

Description:
· DMA/66 Compatable Cable
· High Quality Construction
· Compatible with all IDE Drives

A cable suitable for all IDE drives but specially designed to be used with the new DMA/66 Hard drives. It is constucted using special 40 pin IDC Connectors and 80 core ribbon cable.


The picture does not show how this is wired, with 80 conductors on 40 pins, but must be a reason?

Gareth

DazV

I know I won't be getting ATA100 performance from the drive using an standard IDE cable, but I'm wondering if this could be causing the BIOS to misreport the drive capacity ?

Will get onto AOpen and ask them. Probably take them an age to reply.

-DV

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Blue end of the 80 strand(Not actually 80 pin, but referred to as that) IDE connector should be connected to the ATA100 controller on the Motherboard. The grey connector in the middle should be connected to any device on the chain set to slave. The black connector at the end should be connected to the master device, in your case the Hard drive.

Agree with the above as to the lack of physical support for drives above 127Gb or summat like that. Haven't actually tried it myself, but seem to recall it be stated as a limition of current ATA100 controllers. Unknown to me as to whether any of the curent controllers(VIA, Highpoint 370/A, Promise etc..) can be flashed up to see them correctly.

Cheers,

Nick