440 chipset and hard drive limitation
 

Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old GA-6BXE
motherboard does not support hard drives larger than 75 GB because
of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it uses.

Is this actually true? I have not come across a 75 GB limit.

No, it isn't true and Gigabyte knows this!

I have a Gigabyte GA6BXD running, also with 440BX chipset and it runs
with my Samsung SP1614N (160GB) very well.

But You should ensure, that Your OS can handle such drives. For
Windows XP I gues You have to install the ServicePack 1. Don't know
with W2K.

I'm pretty sure, that Your Mobo will support the drive, too, also
there is only 136GB written in the bios like it is done in my bios,
too.

BUT: The BX-chipset isn't very fast for current drives. UDMA33 is much
to less to let modern drives perform well.

Moritz

Highpoint Rocket 133 dual-channel IDE controller: $30. Can be flashed for
RAID. RAID 0 for thirty bucks, anyone?

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old GA-6BXE
motherboard does not support hard drives larger than 75 GB because
of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it uses.

Is this actually true? I have not come across a 75 GB limit.

Mark



BTW the mobo uses the "Intel 82440 BX AGPset" and "iTE 8671 I/Oset"

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old GA-6BXE
motherboard does not support hard drives larger than 75 GB because
of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it uses.

Is this actually true? I have not come across a 75 GB limit.


I have 2 servers based on GA-6BXDS running 120GB IDEs perfectly.

"Alien Zord" wrote:

Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old
GA-6BXE motherboard does not support hard drives larger than
75 GB because of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it
uses.

Is this actually true? I have not come across a 75 GB limit.


I have 2 servers based on GA-6BXDS running 120GB IDEs
perfectly.


Is the operating system overcoming the barrier for you?

I need to work in something like DOS to do partition copying so the
OS is not likely to be a workaround in my case.

Have you had to update the BIOS? If so then to what version?

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
"Alien Zord" wrote:

I have 2 servers based on GA-6BXDS running 120GB IDEs
perfectly.


Is the operating system overcoming the barrier for you?

There is no such thing as a 75GB barrier. Most 440BX will do 135GB, ancient
ones will hang over 32GB.

Try using a hard disk manager / diagnostic tool.
Download from hard drive manufacturer site.
Some offer drive tests as well.

HTH,
John7


"Eric Gisin" wrote in message
...

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
"Alien Zord" wrote:

I have 2 servers based on GA-6BXDS running 120GB IDEs
perfectly.


Is the operating system overcoming the barrier for you?

There is no such thing as a 75GB barrier. Most 440BX will do 135GB,
ancient
ones will hang over 32GB.

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
"Alien Zord" wrote:

Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old
GA-6BXE motherboard does not support hard drives larger than
75 GB because of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it
uses.

Is this actually true? I have not come across a 75 GB limit.


I have 2 servers based on GA-6BXDS running 120GB IDEs
perfectly.


1) Is the operating system overcoming the barrier for you?

2) I need to work in something like DOS to do partition copying so the
OS is not likely to be a workaround in my case.

3) Have you had to update the BIOS? If so then to what version?


1) No
2) One of the drives was partitioned and formatted in FAT32 (using a Win98
boot floppy) because Norton Ghost versions prior to 2003 could not write to
NTFS partitions.
3) Yes, its F1 now.

"Mark M" wrote in message
Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old GA-6BXE
motherboard does not support hard drives larger than 75 GB because
of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it uses.

Is this actually true?

No, and you know that very well.

I have not come across a 75 GB limit.

See?!


Mark



BTW the mobo uses the "Intel 82440 BX AGPset" and "iTE 8671 I/Oset"

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
"Alien Zord" wrote:

2) One of the drives was partitioned and formatted in FAT32
(using a Win98 boot floppy) because Norton Ghost versions
prior to 2003 could not write to NTFS partitions.
3) Yes, its F1 now.

Seems that something is wrong with the Gigabyte site then. It
talks of version F2 of the BIOS update permitting access to disks
larger than 75 GB.

By implication version F1 can not do this. In fact this page
suggests that the whole purpose of version F2 is to provide 75GB
support.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/...OS_GA-6BXE.htm


That's for your mobo, my one's he
http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/...S_GA-6BXDS.htm

That 75GB limit is strange. Neither a whole binary or decimal representation
of capacity. The limits were 8GB binary (24 bit LBA), 32GB (Award BIOS),
64GB (68.72 decimal) (FDISK) and 128GB (137 decimal) (28 bit extended LBA).

"Mark M" wrote in message
...
"Folkert Rienstra" wrote:

Got a note from Gigabyte tech support saying that their old
GA-6BXE motherboard does not support hard drives larger than
75 GB because of a limitation in the 440 BX chipset which it
uses.

Is this actually true?

No, and you know that very well.

I do not know everything, Folkert! :-)

In fact I do not know all the spec of the 440BX chipset so it may
be that there is a limitation the 440BX has separately from the LBA
addressing limitation.

Certainly that is what Gigabyte Tech Support seem to be telling me
in emails. And that is a possible interpretation of this:

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/...OS_GA-6BXE.htm
Can you read the description for version F2?

I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that Gigabyte knows more about
their motherboards than I do. It is confusing. Your ejaculations
do not help. :-)

Here is everything you need to know about the 440BX chipset:

http://developer.intel.com/design/ch...shts/index.htm

There is a lot of information, so hopefully you will be able to quickly find
what you're looking for. Good luck.

Rita