Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > General Motherboard > Do I need an ATA PCI Card?
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Opie   02-03-2006 at 03:08:31 AM

I just stuck a 320 GB WD HDD into my Compaq Presario 5726 (built in 1999) with VIA chipset VT82C693/VT82C686A (Apollo Pro Plus, I believe) with XP.

XP formatted the drive just fine, and Windows recognizes the full size of the HD. The BIOS recognized the drive right away, although it appeared to say that it was only about 130 GB. I have since read about the LBA problem on older systems: http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

Question: Does my system support this drive without a PCI ATA controller? It's working now, but according to the link above, at some point over the limitation it will write over itself. Should I get a ATA133 PCI card and reformat the drive?

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butitoy   02-03-2006 at 03:45:12 AM
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update ur bios for a start.

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Opie   02-03-2006 at 04:56:06 AM
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I updated the motherboard bios per Compaq's site. I haven't messed with any chipset drivers. Since it is working now, I'm just trying to determine if the limitation is really in effect with this chipset.

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butitoy   02-03-2006 at 05:32:03 AM
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it said: Formatting an ATA interface drive past the 137GB barrier on a system that does not meet all requirements will result in data loss.

are you using xp sp2? sp1 and previous version does not support higher than 137.

or have you tried partitioning your drive? u can partition ur drive with ur xp bootable cd.

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Opie   02-03-2006 at 05:54:04 AM
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Ya, I used SP2 - and it let me format it with full capacity. But it sounds like what Windows thinks it is is not always what the BIOS thinks it is. I'm ordering an ATA card to help with this issue. Now I gotta figure out if I have to reformat after I get the ATA PCI card.

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sturm   02-03-2006 at 08:32:21 PM
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No you shouldnt have to reformat, unless you want to.
After installing the card and attaching the drive to it, it should come up just like it did before.

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