PCI Hard Drive (IDE) Controller Card

I have A Trinity 400 (S1854) motherboard that goes back to 1999.
Currently, it has an 80GB IDE/PATA hard drive installed.
It is my understanding that the BIOS of a motherboard going back to
that era has a 137GB (or so) limit in terms of hard drive size.

I would like to install a 320GB IDE/PATA hard drive, so I am looking
for a PCI hard drive controller card that can handle such size.
I did some searches on the internet and ran across a few cards that can
handle hard drives up to a 128-137GB capacity.

Does anyone know if there is a PCI controller card that can handle a
320GB IDE hard drive?

This would be the only hard drive installed on the motherboard, so the
card needs to be able to get along with BIOS and chipset. (The chipset
is VIA Apollo Pro 133A, the BIOS is Award BIOS 4.51PG,
05/11/2000-694X-596B-977-TYAN1854C-00, TYAN S1854 Trinity 400 Rev.
1.07.)

Thanks.
--
tb

tb wrote:

Does anyone know if there is a PCI controller card that can handle a
320GB IDE hard drive?

PCI bus speed?
IME, many PCI cards are highly dependant on the bus speed.

tb wrote:
I have A Trinity 400 (S1854) motherboard that goes back to 1999.
Currently, it has an 80GB IDE/PATA hard drive installed.
It is my understanding that the BIOS of a motherboard going back to
that era has a 137GB (or so) limit in terms of hard drive size.

I would like to install a 320GB IDE/PATA hard drive, so I am looking
for a PCI hard drive controller card that can handle such size.
I did some searches on the internet and ran across a few cards that can
handle hard drives up to a 128-137GB capacity.

Does anyone know if there is a PCI controller card that can handle a
320GB IDE hard drive?

This would be the only hard drive installed on the motherboard, so the
card needs to be able to get along with BIOS and chipset. (The chipset
is VIA Apollo Pro 133A, the BIOS is Award BIOS 4.51PG,
05/11/2000-694X-596B-977-TYAN1854C-00, TYAN S1854 Trinity 400 Rev.
1.07.)

Thanks.

This might possibly be one of the first. Ultra133 TX2 PCI IDE.
The Ultra100 TX2 might work, if it had a more recent firmware installed.

http://www.promise.com/news_room/new...global&rsn=280

You don't mention the OS you're using, which would be another potential
issue if the OS was old enough. This archived document, helps address
the general subject of using the larger drives.

http://web.archive.org/web/200701210...c/tp/137gb.pdf

Promise stopped making those TX2 cards years ago, so the only way to get them
is used. At one time, those cards were even bundled in retail disk drive boxes,
as a promotion. That's where I got at least one of mine.

There is nothing special about those cards, it's just I have a couple.

You can try a more modern card, and the thing is, as long as the card
supports the 133MB/sec cable transfer rate, chances are it is 48 bit LBA
compatible. In terms of year of introduction, anything past the middle of
2003, should be ready for 48 bit LBA.

One of the problems with shopping for IDE cards now, is the poor selection
available. There are cards with IT8212 chip from ITE, as well as cards
with the VIA VT6421 or VT6421A. The SIL0680 chip seems to be gone, so there
are no more cards with that one. The Promise cards are gone. And none
of the cards on Newegg for 8212 or 6421, have very good reviews. If anything,
perhaps you could buy locally, and return the card if it doesn't function
as expected.

Paul

On 09/12/2011 08:23 PM, terryc wrote:

PCI bus speed?
IME, many PCI cards are highly dependant on the bus speed.

66 MHz.
--
tb

tb wrote:
On 09/12/2011 08:23 PM, terryc wrote:

PCI bus speed?
IME, many PCI cards are highly dependant on the bus speed.

66 MHz.

ftp://ftp.tyan.com/datasheets/d_s1854_150.pdf

"Six 32-bit 33MHz (5-volt) PCI slots"

HTH,
Paul

tb wrote:

I have A Trinity 400 (S1854) motherboard that goes back to 1999.
Currently, it has an 80GB IDE/PATA hard drive installed.
It is my understanding that the BIOS of a motherboard going back to
that era has a 137GB (or so) limit in terms of hard drive size.

I would like to install a 320GB IDE/PATA hard drive, so I am looking
for a PCI hard drive controller card that can handle such size.
I did some searches on the internet and ran across a few cards that can
handle hard drives up to a 128-137GB capacity.

Does anyone know if there is a PCI controller card that can handle a
320GB IDE hard drive?

This would be the only hard drive installed on the motherboard, so the
card needs to be able to get along with BIOS and chipset. (The chipset
is VIA Apollo Pro 133A, the BIOS is Award BIOS 4.51PG,

Look for an ATA100 or ATA133 card because I don't think any of the
ATA33 or ATA66 cards support drives bigger than 128-137GB. Even older
(pre-2003) ATA100 and ATA133 cards may need firmware updates to add
large drive support, but that's easy if the card uses a Promise, Artec
(from Siig), or Silicon Image chip. Cards usually differ by chip,
not by card brand, so don't rule out cheap stuff because I've bought
brand new Silicon Image cards from Ebay for $3 (delivered, probably
now at least $5) that were identical to $20 ones sold elsewhere. If
you check thrift stores, Silicon Image cards stick out in the pile
because almost every one has a large chip angled at 45 degrees from
the others. Their PATA cards use the 0680A chip.

There are also combination PATA-SATA cards, and the most common ones
use a VIA chip, typically the VT6421A. Avoid VT6421 and VT6421L chips
because they have a serious design flaw that prevents them from
recognizing SATA drives configured for faster than 150 megabytes/
second maximum speed, and that may also be true of VT6421A chips made
before late 2009 (date code is under part number, in the form yywwxx,
where yy = last 2 digits of the year, ww = week of the year, and xx =
two letters).

Plug-in controllers can be incompatible with some motherboards and
require changing BIOS settings for the motherboard's RAID controller
or even re-flashing the plug-in card's firmware to either the RAID or
non-RAID version.

Plug-in controllers don't seem to work very well with optical drives,
and booting from one may be impossible.

"tb" wrote in message
...

I have A Trinity 400 (S1854) motherboard that goes back to 1999.
Currently, it has an 80GB IDE/PATA hard drive installed.
It is my understanding that the BIOS of a motherboard going back to
that era has a 137GB (or so) limit in terms of hard drive size.

This may depend on your Operating System. When using Win98
I discovered that although the BIOS was limited to 137 Gb per
driveletter I could still use FDISK to partition a 360 Gb drive to
three drive letters, wholely useable by the Win98 system.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

On 9/12/2011 at 8:41:08 PM Paul wrote:

You don't mention the OS you're using, which would be another
potential issue if the OS was old enough.

The hard drive has two Linux OSs: Ubuntu 11.04 and Slackware 13.37 --
both 32-bit. I am hoping that their kernels will take care care of the
driver interface.

I was taking a look at an SIIG UltraATA 133 PCI (p/n SC-PE4B12-S4) and
an ACARD AEC-6280 PCI ATA-133 IDE. The first one has a Linux driver
only for hardware v.1. (I think they are up to hardware v. 4 now.)
The second one states that it is compatible with RedHat, Fedora, RH
Enterprise, SuSE, Tubro.

So I am guessing that Linux's kernel includes drivers for the
controller cards. (Right?)
--
tb

On 9/13/2011 at 6:31:28 AM larry moe 'n curly wrote:

Look for an ATA100 or ATA133 card because I don't think any of the
ATA33 or ATA66 cards support drives bigger than 128-137GB. Even older
(pre-2003) ATA100 and ATA133 cards may need firmware updates to add
large drive support, but that's easy if the card uses a Promise, Artec
(from Siig), or Silicon Image chip. Cards usually differ by chip,
not by card brand, so don't rule out cheap stuff because I've bought
brand new Silicon Image cards from Ebay for $3 (delivered, probably
now at least $5) that were identical to $20 ones sold elsewhere. If
you check thrift stores, Silicon Image cards stick out in the pile
because almost every one has a large chip angled at 45 degrees from
the others. Their PATA cards use the 0680A chip.

I was taking a look at a SIIG UltraATA 133 PCI card (p/n SC-PE4B12-S4)
at the SIIG online site, but could not find anything about firmware
updates. Their site only has Windows updated drivers. (Suprisingly
even for Windows 7!!)

Do you happen to know if a firmware update is handled by such a driver
update? Sorry, but I am not the most experienced person in this field
and I am curious to know just in case I decide to get one of these
cards.

Thanks.
--
tb

tb wrote:

So I am guessing that Linux's kernel includes drivers for the
controller cards. (Right?)

In general, not necessarily. IME, reliability might be an issue. just
watch the logs if the install is successful.

My 2c is that your first problem will be that the card can work on a
33MHz bus. You might have to do a nonstandard install and spec the
kernel to operate the bus at that speed.

Then there will be the issue of the card working okay on a possibly
slower bus than it is designed for.

Then the issue of data speeds.