does the maximum vol of ext hd determine by motherboard?

Xxxthunder3 SG

I am confused by the salesman in sim lim square today when i want 2 buy 320gb ext 2.5'hd.

he told me that the max vol of hd is determine by motherboard( whether if it supports ide ,sata or sata2).when he recommend 500gb,i told him that my os is xp pro2 and was told by friend in it field that xp can only recognised max 320gb,he back off.

So,can any kind soul give me valuble advice so that i won wasted another trip.thanks 4 all your kind guesture.

Arkansaw SG

Your friend is probably mistaken because if you do a search or ask around, many pple have using terabyte drives on xp. Check if that particular hard disk manufacturer has some utility (usually a bootable cd) to partition/format the hard disk into partition(s) that will utilize all the available space, if that can be done xp should have little problem detecting the space.

Xxxthunder3 SG

is it true that xp can only support to 3 gb of ram?

Arkansaw SG

3.5G on x86 (but pple usually put 2x 2G), 8G on x64

MyPillowTalks SG

NOT FOR EXT HDDs. IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT INTERNAL HDD, PLEASE READ ON

What does it mean?

Firstly, Harddisk Drive(HDD) are connected to the motherboard via IDE(The flat, long, cable) or SATA(the small thin, long cable). Thus, if you have only 2 SATA ports, and 1 IDE port for exmaple, you can only put in 1 IDE HDD, and 2 SATA HDD

SO check how many free ports there are!

I think that is what the salesman meant by 'volume'.

Your friend is wrong in telling you that xp only supports 320gb,
my friend's xp machine reads 500gb.

OK BACK TO YOUR HARDDISK ISSUE:

In order for you not make any more waste trip, you need to know that in order for a harddisk to work, you need

1. A power source going into it
2. THe Sata cable or IDE cable that will be connected to the motherboard.

Therefore,

1. For SATA HDD nowadays, the power cord that you need to plug in might be differrent from what your computer uses (If it is realllllyy ooolldd like my old one)

Computers running the IDE HDD use the 'molex' connector which look like this: [click the link]

http://www.pcug.org.au/boesen/maintenance/molex_red.JPG

The colour doesnt matter

However, the new SATA 2 HDD uses the powersource called 'sata power', which looks like this: [click the link]

http://images.tomshardware.com/2005/11/23/pc_interfaces_101/hdd_sata_connected2.jpg

The one on the right is the sata power cable which you need to connect from the power supply unit, while the one on the left, is the data cable which u need to connect to the motherboard

IN AN EVENT where you are connecting a SATA HDD to a fairly old computer, which have sata ports, but the power supply unit does not have the 'sata power plugs' you need one of these:

http://www.darkwire.com.au/assets/images/SATA_to_HDD_Power_Cable.jpg

This will be the 'satapower' to 'molex' connector, so that people with older powersupplies can use the sata hdd without problem

ONE LAST THING, if you r motherboard does not have any sata ports, please do not buy the SATA HDD

I told you things i know, now i tell you what i dunno, someone please teach also:

WIll sata 2 work on sata 1 port?

Xxxthunder3 SG

what happens if it is internal 2.5" hd with external casing?

will it matters if it is ide,sata,sata2 if my mother board does not support any one of it?

Arkansaw SG

wow, really detailed but maybe you should just ask him for the following info first: current mobo model? target hdd model?

sata is supposed to be backward compatible, but better do research, like on whether so and so hard disk has a jumper setting for sata1/2 etc

nenepokey SG

eh...now i even more confused. TS asking for external HDD, but answers came were RAM or internal HDD?

for me, to the TS, the salesman really confused you up. your friend is also wrong too. there's no such thing as 'XP can only support up to 320GB'. nonsense. and since external HDD are connnected to the computer via USB cables, there's no worries. u can just go ahead and buy them. 2 of 320GB will add up to less than or equals to 640GB, or if you want more storage, maybe a 500GB and a 250GB that make up 750GB. well, it's your decision.

MyPillowTalks SG

what happens if it is internal 2.5" hd with external casing?

will it matters if it is ide,sata,sata2 if my mother board does not support any one of it?

oh sorry, you can ignore my post

i thought you are asking for internal HDD

for that internal hdd with external casing i think they are connected with USBs right? they just plug into usb will work

SBS7484P SG

nonsense. i have 4X250GB disk drives and up to 750GB of storage, since 2 are used seperately for movies and my photos each, the other twoo, one is my bootdrive, the second is a direct backup, in case things fail.

playmemory SG

as far as external hard disk is concern. there should be no limit.

Raraken SG

NOT FOR EXT HDDs. IF YOU ARE WIll sata 2 work on sata 1 port?

Err, jumper settings, although I tried to fit a Sata 2 drive to a Sata 1 connection with proper jumper settings and guess what? My PSU blew up. Now that com give my sis liao.

Raraken SG

External Drives, no limit. Internal, has anyone tried 1TB on XP?

Xxxthunder3 SG

I have tried the 320 gb sata internal hd with external casing.the usb controller displaye that it is being not recognised.

What should i do?please offer your kind advice as i won be free for the next whole week.thanks for every kind advice given.I will really appreciate your effort.

nenepokey SG

I have tried the 320 gb sata internal hd with external casing.the usb controller displaye that it is being not recognised.

What should i do?please offer your kind advice as i won be free for the next whole week.thanks for every kind advice given.I will really appreciate your effort.

did you try using other USB ports on your computer?

playmemory SG

I have tried the 320 gb sata internal hd with external casing.the usb controller displaye that it is being not recognised.

What should i do?please offer your kind advice as i won be free for the next whole week.thanks for every kind advice given.I will really appreciate your effort.

usually, the hard drive will be toally empty. which means you will need to go to disk management to allocate the disk space to NTFS first. after that format the disk.