dad wants to upgrade computer....

[pianoplayer88key]

I'm posting here cause I'm not sure where else.

We're considering upgrading our computer in the next week or two (I hope. My dad told me recently (last week or so) he wants to do it after the holidays, so I'm doing some research for him.)

Dad wants a new case (he says the new ones have better cooling systems / ventilation (not sure if I heard him correctly, though) than the one we have, which is a few years old. I'd like it to have plenty of expansion slots and bays, but we do have limited space - the spot where it goes in the desk is only about 20.25" high, so I doubt we'll put one in that includes 12 ext 5.25" bays, 4 ext 3.5", and 8 int 3.5" bays, dual PS, quad fans, 16 expansion slots, etc.
Any recommendations on cases? I don't think we need something that's fancy looking, though.

The current board & CPU is a MSI K6T266 Pro with a 1.4GHz AMD chip, and 256MB of 266MHz RAM. It's time for an upgrade here, too. I'd like us to put in at least 2GB of RAM, and at least a 1.8 to 2GHz (preferably dual-core) CPU. AMD vs Intel doesn't matter all that much to me, though, except I definitely don't want a low-end like Celeron, etc.

In case I haven't mentioned it (and since I don't know where to mention it, i'll do it here), we are concerned about making sure the computer doesn't run too hot. Our current setup sometimes gets a bit toasty, to the point where we usually have a fan running pointed at the computer. I'd like to make sure we have a case with adequate ventilation & cooling, plenty of cooling on the CPU and video card, etc.

My dad today also said he wants video capture capability so we can plug in a VCR (VHS for now, but I hope we can get something newer in the future) and capture video. (we already have a Lite-On DVD+/-RW DL drive.)

Also, what about hard drive controllers? I had gotten one with a 250GB hard drive I got a year or two ago, but right now it's not installed, and I have had trouble getting it to work since we reinstalled Windows 2k Pro a while back. My dad has a 200GB HD in there of which only 127GB is available for use because of the 137GB limit (I don't know if it's with our board or with our OS, though.) Besides using extra large drives, I might want to put a RAID setup in to help run Ivory (Synthogy), a piano sample library. (Note - you may recall a thread I made a few weeks ago about wanting to get my own computer to run this. Since my dad has decided to upgrade his computer, I am thinking about running my music software on his computer, and waiting a while to buy a computer until I have a budget of more like $3000 to $5000 (for starters) or something like that.)

One thing I wasn't able to coax out of my dad was a price range. I may have mentioned some components/software that I'd like to put in that would be in addition to what he said he wants, but I know for sure that he wants a new board & CPU, plenty of RAM (2GB minimum), a computer that won't overheat, video capture card, and a new case.

Also, we will be purchasing components and setting it up ourselves, so it's imperative that we buy from a local vendor. Several we would consider include Technology Depot (this is where my brother bought a computer recently and as far as I know was happy with the transaction, etc), as well as many vendors listed in San Diego, CA's ComputorEdge magazine advertiser's index, except for Computer Depot Warehouse (my brother knows someone who had a bad experience there) and PC Club (my brother says they've gotten too big for their britches).
Any suggestions?

 

[haywood]

Can't be much help without a budget.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

We'd like to find out what various options would cost. He wants me to price various things, but I just talked to him and he could see himself spending up to $800 or maybe $1000. (I hope this is enough, though. If after finding out good options that might boost the price a little, I'll talk to him about it.)
Would that be sufficient to get:
2GB RAM (probably about $210 to 250 or so)
a decent board, CPU, case, PS, etc (thinking something around 1.8 to 2.4 GHz, preferably dual core, that runs cool)
new case (don't need anything fancy looking, though, just want something that has room for expansion and has good ventilation / fans / etc.
video capture card (should we get a video card that has it, or a separate dedicated card?)
Windows XP Professional (I guess about $135 or so)

So besides the RAM and OS, I think that drops it down to about $650 or so for the case, board, CPU, and video capture card. We'll most likely continue using our current DVD+-RW DL drive (recently got it in the last few months), hard drive (but we're currently up against the 137GB formatting limit - would the new system / OS fix this?), keyboard, mouse, monitor. I will probably want to put an additional hard drive in - maybe a RAID setup, but that isn't included in the price mentioned above (although just in case, I WOULD like RAID functionality on the board, if possible, but I'd be willing to consider buying a dedicated controller when I'm ready to do it.)

So, what would you guys recommend?

 

[haywood]

Everyone will have a differnt opinion but here is my shot...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 ~$185

Gigabyte P965 S3 mobo ~$115

Good RAM, 2 Gb (2x1GB) sticks. ~$200. Corsair, Giel, G Skill are good brands. If you won't overclock then some Value RAM DDR2 533 MHz will be fine and cheaper.

Rosewill R5604 case ~$50. Has two 120mm fans and plenty of room for drives.

Seagate 7200.10 hard drive, 250Gb ~$80

All that for ~$630 at www.newegg.com


Power supply ? depends on the total build. You can check the PSU forums after you have all the other parts selected.

Cant help you with vid capture, might try another forum for that. You will need a video card, best card at ~$100 is a GeForce 7600 GS. Be good for everything and some light gaming.

 

[WizardOZ]

Hi

Hope this helps

Case: check out the Thermaltake Armour Jr Case. No pwer supply included, very nice and flexible. more info here

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Chassis/midtower/armorjr/vc3000_index.asp

Power Supply: for what you want, minimum is 500W.

Video capture: for what you say you want to do there are a few options
Option 1 and most compact is an ATI All-In-Wonder card. See web site here:

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx1900/aiwx1900/index.html

Gaming performance may not be cutting edge, but it is a good performer.

Option 2 is get a high performance video card abd then get something like the ADS DVD Express capture box.

Since you are on a budget, I recommend the ATI card. Also check out the AIW 2006 card - not as expensive

See earlier reply for suggestions re CPU, MoBo etc..

you may want to look at a monitor as well.

 

[WizardOZ]

Re Hrd drive issues

Windows XP shoud be able to see more than 127 GB size no problem. If there is still a problem, you will need to get a package called Partition Magic. Very good product. Now sold by Symantec.

One thing that you will need to verify is the number of ATA controller attachemnts on the new MoBo. Current MoBos are tending to have only one ATA conmtroller on board, with lots of SATA controllers. This is an issue if you have more than 2 ATA devices. Optical drives like DVD are usually ATA interface. It sounds like your hard drive is also an ATA device. If you only have one optical drive and one hard drive, you will be OK, but if you have more than 2 ATA devices, you will need to look into either a new SATA hard drive or an add-in ATA controller to run the extra devices. It may be cheaper and easier to get the SATA hard drive and do a data transfer from your existing drive.

As an extra thought, you may want to consider keeping the old system and installing Linux on it for learning purposes. You will need to get a KVM switch. You should seriously consider adding more RAM to the existing system if you decide to keep it.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

My dad has a 200GB drive, and I have an 80GB and 250GB drive. I belive they're all ATA (or older). They're all Western Digital drives (the 250GB is a WD2500JB).

My brother suggested we go with an AMD CPU. Any suggestions on that platform? Also, he said he wasn't happy with ATI's video cards. What other cards would be good to look at, and, since (as far as I know) ATI's the only one that has capture ports built into a video card, what would be good alternatives for a video capture interface?

Also, what brands of power supplies are good? (I'll also need to figure out the wattage needed for our system, too. Would the links in the PSU forum in a sticky near the top (if I remember correctly) help figure that out?)

 

[NamelessMC]

I don't know about your brother but I've had nothing but good experiences with PC Club.

I remember back when 939's barely came out, I was really on the fence about ordering from Newegg or buying local. I went to PC Club and checked out the exact motherboard I was checking out online, it was only about 3-4$ more than Newegg, and Newegg charges shipping AND taxes. It ended up being cheaper than Newegg and he threw in a 1-year warranty through the shop on it, just because I knew my stuff. (Stacked with the 1 year manufacturer warranty)

If your dad's budget is 800-1000, he'd be better off building a new tower from scratch and only recycling storage and extra parts from the older PC. Any main components would be better replaced. The motherboard is most likely a Socket 374 or whatever those XP processors were, and likely wouldn't handle an upgrade to anything socket 939 or dual core related.

What most people suggested is good. Go Intel, go Core2duo and most importantly make sure the motherboard is good.

Local is fine, in retrospect though, I lived in SD and I had a much better experience ordering online. The only benefit to buying local was that PC Club had a deal on a Thermaltake case that was 30% off, making it way cheaper than any online competitor and only had to pay tax. Check out PC Club or Fry's for cases, that way your dad can actually LOOK at the case and see the ventilation.

MAKE SURE YOU GET A CASE WITH NO POWER SUPPLY.

The reason for this is because no matter how high of a voltage a case boasts with a PSU packaged, it won't be a high quality PSU. I've heard so much about people having their systems break and losing components because of poor quality PSUs. Get a PSU-less Case that's ATX2.0 form factor, and just get a nice 3rd party power supply. There's a sticky'd thread somewhere in the hardware forums here.

 

[WizardOZ]

My dad has a 200GB drive, and I have an 80GB and 250GB drive. I belive they're all ATA (or older). They're all Western Digital drives (the 250GB is a WD2500JB).

They are ATA. All systems from 386 on use ATA interface. Current issue is that new Mobos only have one ATA port available. This means that you can only run 2 ATA drives, all others have to be SATA.


My brother suggested we go with an AMD CPU. Any suggestions on that platform? Also, he said he wasn't happy with ATI's video cards. What other cards would be good to look at, and, since (as far as I know) ATI's the only one that has capture ports built into a video card, what would be good alternatives for a video capture interface?

AMD is in a catch up and transition stage right now. Currently, they are selling AM2 platform. Presently dropping prices, to compensate for Intel performance advantage, so cheaper, but see compatability comments below. There is some debate about the backwards compatability of AM2+ and AM3 CPUs in AM2 MoBos. Allegedly, new AMD CPus will fit in and work with AM2 MoBos, but one won't be able to get all the benefits of the new CPUs in the old MoBos. I recommend a serious look at the Intel Core2Duo CPUs and MoBos. In either case you will have to get new RAM so no cost savings there. The Intel CPUs seriously outperform the AMD CPUs.

ATI produces some very fine product, as does nVidea. For the purposes you say you want to use the new computer, ATI's AIW cards are the best choice. You should get your brother to clarify exactly why he was "unhappy" with the ATI cards. If you do go with the nVidea card you will need to get a seperate box like the ones from ADS Technologies - look it up. THG did review one of their devices and it was good. Just remeber that thie nVidea card + ADS device may be more expensive thasn the ATI card alone.


Also, what brands of power supplies are good? (I'll also need to figure out the wattage needed for our system, too. Would the links in the PSU forum in a sticky near the top (if I remember correctly) help figure that out?)

Enermax, Antec, Thermaltake and some models of Ultra have gottern good reviews. Another member of these forums, verndewd, has a link to a series of PS reviews and articles in his signature. Check it out.

My responses in green. See also the PM I sent you. And the post immediately after yours prior to this one

 

[NotAPimecone]

Good PSU quick reference: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

 

[k2gremlin]

OCZ makes good power supplies as well.

 

[zjohnr]

I think WizardOZ's response to you may have had a typo in it and as a result it did not say quite what I think he meant to say. I edited it below with what I think he meant. My edit was to add the letter "P", which is in red below and underlined.

My dad has a 200GB drive, and I have an 80GB and 250GB drive. I belive they're all ATA (or older). They're all Western Digital drives (the 250GB is a WD2500JB).

They are ATA. All systems from 386 on use ATA interface. Current issue is that new Mobos only have one PATA port available. This means that you can only run 2 PATA drives, all others have to be SATA.

In case you're not familiar with these terms, PATA means Parallel ATA as opposed to Serial ATA which is SATA. The principle difference from a usage perspective is the cables used to connect the devices to the motherboard. The PATA drives you have use a large round cable or a large flat "ribbon" cable with 40 or 80 wires in it. A SATA drive is connected with a much skinnier cable with only a few wires in it.

One really nice thing about SATA cables is that they do not block air-flow in a case as much as the PATA cables do. Being smaller and more flexible, SATA cables are also much easier to work with.

-john

 

[zjohnr]

Re Hrd drive issues

Windows XP shoud be able to see more than 127 GB size no problem. If there is still a problem, you will need to get a package called Partition Magic. Very good product. Now sold by Symantec.

Not sure why WizardOZ is recommending Partition Magic. Possibly he is thinking that you will want/need to resize your existing partitions to reach the full extent of the drive. That's one possibility, but you could also just create another partition in the empty space, once it is accessible, to use it.

As to the 127GB limit, my current motherboard also has this BIOS limitation. In your case, I couldn't find any info about a MSI K6T266 Pro motherboard. However, MSI does have an entry for a K7T266 Pro motherboard. Is this your board?

If so, then I think you can fix your capacity problems by simply installing the last BIOS for your motherboard. If you can fix the 127GB limit by an update to the BIOS, that is DEFINITELY the way to go.

However, even if a BIOS fix is not available to you, you can still get around the 127GB limit with a Windows 2000 update. Windows 2000 has been able to access beyond the 127GB limit since its SP2. So even if you motherboard's BIOS does not see past the 127GB limit (mine doesn't), you can still use the entire capacity of a 200GB or larger hard drive so long as you have the appropriate updates for Windows 2000 (or XP).

So if you can't update your BIOS to fix the problem, first make sure you have installed all of the available Windows 2000 fixes. Running Windows Update should take care of this for you.

If after you have installed all of the fixes available for Windows 2000 you still do not see beyond the 127GB limit on a hard drive, then you may need to do an update to the Windows registry. I suggest looking at any article on 127GB capacity limits on the website of any of the major hard disk manufacurers. For example, here's a link to a walkthrough on the Seagate website: Why can't I see the full capacity of my drive?

Finally, FWIW, yes, any new motherboard you may purchase will no longer have the 127GB limit. 48-bit LBA addressing should be a part of the BIOS support of any new motherboard sold these days.

-john, the redundant legacy dinosaur

 

[WizardOZ]

Re Hrd drive issues

Windows XP shoud be able to see more than 127 GB size no problem. If there is still a problem, you will need to get a package called Partition Magic. Very good product. Now sold by Symantec.

Not sure why WizardOZ is recommending Partition Magic. Possibly he is thinking that you will want/need to resize your existing partitions to reach the full extent of the drive. That's one possibility, but you could also just create another partition in the empty space, once it is accessible, to use it.

As to the 127GB limit, my current motherboard also has this BIOS limitation. In your case, I couldn't find any info about a MSI K6T266 Pro motherboard. However, MSI does have an entry for a K7T266 Pro motherboard. Is this your board?

If so, then I think you can fix your capacity problems by simply installing the last BIOS for your motherboard. If you can fix the 127GB limit by an update to the BIOS, that is DEFINITELY the way to go.

However, even if a BIOS fix is not available to you, you can still get around the 127GB limit with a Windows 2000 update. Windows 2000 has been able to access beyond the 127GB limit since its SP2. So even if you motherboard's BIOS does not see past the 127GB limit (mine doesn't), you can still use the entire capacity of a 200GB or larger hard drive so long as you have the appropriate updates for Windows 2000 (or XP).

So if you can't update your BIOS to fix the problem, first make sure you have installed all of the available Windows 2000 fixes. Running Windows Update should take care of this for you.

If after you have installed all of the fixes available for Windows 2000 you still do not see beyond the 127GB limit on a hard drive, then you may need to do an update to the Windows registry. I suggest looking at any article on 127GB capacity limits on the website of any of the major hard disk manufacurers. For example, here's a link to a walkthrough on the Seagate website: Why can't I see the full capacity of my drive?

Finally, FWIW, yes, any new motherboard you may purchase will no longer have the 127GB limit. 48-bit LBA addressing should be a part of the BIOS support of any new motherboard sold these days.

-john, the redundant legacy dinosaur

Umm, the 127 GB limit is a Windos 9x / ME "feature" that can also be found in early versions of Windows 2000, as your own post notes. Windows XP is supposed to have adressed this issue, but based on what I see in several posts in the forums, it ain't necessarily so. Partition Magic will enable a user to take full advantage of the entire capacity of a hard drive, under Windows, regardless of the limits of whatever version of Windows one is using. The ability to resize partitions in real time without data loss is also extremely useful. As is the ability to create new partitions and merge existing partitions.

Your suggestion that a BIOS patch / upgrade will fix the problem is DOA, as the issue of Windows not recognizing drives greater than a specific capacity is hard-coded into the OS. For example, Windows 98 can theoretically see up to 127 GB of hard drive yet when I install it it on an 80 GB drive, it will only acknowledge a drive of 10 GB in size. This is due to the fact that the biggest drive Win 9x is coded to recognize is 60 GB. Anything over that messess up the system. I must use Partition Magic to access the unrecognized space. I have not seen or heard anything to contradict this point anywhere. Given my own direct experience, the lack of any documented contradiction or solution, I stand by the recommendation of Partition Magic in the Windows environment to deal with large drives.

Further to the issue of BIOS updates, I have direct experience wuith cases where a hard drive larger than what the BIOS would recognize, but Windows would see led to a failure of Windows installation. The problem was that Windows installation program could not resolve the conflict between what the BIOS was saying and its own install routine. Funny how Linux doesn't have this problem.

Speaking of patching / upgrading the BIOS, perhaps you could explain how this is to be done on a system that is not bootable and hasn't got all the drivers and apps necessary to connect to the MoBo manufacturer's website installed. You know, the OS, MoBO software and drivers, network drivers, video drivers and assorted applications to connect to and browse the web.

John, your suggestion that one should edit the registry is unhelpful at best and stupidly reckless at worst. While many of the members here are competent to edit the registry, others aren't. In any case, editing the registry is a "last resort" and subject to a bunch of caveats that you neglected to mention. And all this risky work is not necessary if one uses Partiton Magic.

Let's check the balance, shall we?

On John's side of the scale, we are at the mercy of registry edits, BIOS patches that may not be accessable due to OS installtion failures, and lack of drivers and apps to enable access to the web in any case. Let's remember that BIOS patches can fail, and this usually means a trip to the store to buy a new board.

On WizardOz's side we install OS as is, have everything running up to spec, no need to monkey with the registry, or BIOS patches, and have unacessable space on the drive. We install a very powerful and effective software package that gives us access to the remaing space on the drive, deals with the admin details automaticaly and I don't need to worry about trashing my system and having to start from scratch, or worse, if the BIOS patch fails, buying a new MoBo.

Hmmm - which is easier and safer for ALL users, I wonder? That's right, the Partion Magic option. Wizard OZ has better answer, you bet.

 

[WizardOZ]

Umm, no, not a typo. The recognized convention is in fact ATA. Or IDE for that matter. Since 80386 days. The isue of "P" vs "S" is a very recent one, and bogus, as ATA is understood to mean "parallel ATA". Why do you think that Serial ATA drives and interfaces are explicitely identified as "SATA"?

 

[WizardOZ]

The principle difference from a usage perspective is the cables used to connect the devices to the motherboard. The PATA drives you have use a large round cable or a large flat "ribbon" cable with 40 or 80 wires in it. A SATA drive is connected with a much skinnier cable with only a few wires in it.

One really nice thing about SATA cables is that they do not block air-flow in a case as much as the PATA cables do. Being smaller and more flexible, SATA cables are also much easier to work with.

The first paragraph in the quote is incorrect. The two major advantages of SATA over ATA are, in order, firstly the ability to exchange / remove a SATA drive without having to shut the computer down, simialr to the hot-swap capability of advanced SCSI Raid sytems and secondly, much higher (theoretical) data transfer rates. Additionally, SATA drives can use much longer cables than ATA drives.

Speaking of cables (second quoted paragraph), SATA cables are omni-directional and are not constrained by the Master / Slave attachment limitiations of ATA cables. SATA has a one cable - one drive setup, as compared to the one cable - two drives mode of ATA. These are the most critical advantages of SATA cables over ATA cables. SATA cables are much slimmer than classic ATA cables, and air-flow interference is not an issue compared tio classic flat ribbon cables. Which is why the round ATA cables were developed in the first place.

I recommend that you get your own facts and info straight before offering advice or "critiquing" and editing other posts.

 

[zjohnr]

Umm, no, not a typo. The recognized convention is in fact ATA. Or IDE for that matter. Since 80386 days. The isue of "P" vs "S" is a very recent one, and bogus, as ATA is understood to mean "parallel ATA". Why do you think that Serial ATA drives and interfaces are explicitely identified as "SATA"?

I think that the "S" in SATA is provided for the same reason I prefer to provide the "P" in PATA to clarify the difference in the physical connection method. Assuming ATA to imply "parallel ATA" is not as obvious to me and so I don't think it clearly conveys what you meant to say. Both PATA and SATA are ATA once you get beyond the connection mechanism, are they not?

And of course all the other differences you mentioned between PATA and SATA are also all true. I just didn't think they were the most noticeable to a possibly naive user so I didn't mention them. Thanks for adding the extra info.

-john

 

[misry]

I wonder if the OP knew he was going to start Geekapalooza XCVII?

 

[zjohnr]

Umm, the 127 GB limit is a Windos 9x / ME "feature" that can also be found in early versions of Windows 2000, as your own post notes. Windows XP is supposed to have adressed this issue, but based on what I see in several posts in the forums, it ain't necessarily so. Partition Magic will enable a user to take full advantage of the entire capacity of a hard drive, under Windows, regardless of the limits of whatever version of Windows one is using.

Your suggestion that a BIOS patch / upgrade will fix the problem is DOA, as the issue of Windows not recognizing drives greater than a specific capacity is hard-coded into the OS.

Well, I don't know about Win98/ME and frankly at this point in time I don't really care about them either. The OP said they are using Win 2000 Pro so I tried to focus on solutions that would work for that OS and also for XP.

As I said, my motherboard does not support 48-bit LBA so my BIOS has the 127GB limit. Also there is no BIOS update available to me from the manufacturer. (Hell, I'm not even sure ACorp is still in business ). However, I was able to install Win 2K Pro and use the full capacity beyond 127GB on all my large PATA hard drives. This is why I have some confidence that the SP2 and later updates for Win2K can work.

There is also the fact that the Win2K fixes are discussed in multiple places all over the net. Googling for the 127GB limit or some other similar search would turn them up. Certainly there is information about this on all the web sites of all the major hard drive manufacturers and in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

As for using Partition Magic to circumvent the 127GB limit, I thought all the hard drive manufacturers also provided essentially the same software circumvention for free as part of their install routines. So you can use Partition Magic but essentially the same fix is also already included (if you want it) with the drive install software, isn't it?

Going this route is certainly another option to get around the 48-bit LBA problem. It's just not one I prefer because you loose some (admittedly a very, very small relative amount) of the capacity on the disk to hold the circumvention code.

Further to the issue of BIOS updates, I have direct experience with cases where a hard drive larger than what the BIOS would recognize, but Windows would see led to a failure of Windows installation. The problem was that Windows installation program could not resolve the conflict between what the BIOS was saying and its own install routine.

I believe you. Sadly it may not be enough to patch the BIOS. It may also be necessary to create a Windows install CD that has slipstreamed the last Win2K Service Pack. All I know is that I always installed from a slipstreamed install CD with either Win2K SP3 or SP4 included and I never had problems.

Speaking of patching / upgrading the BIOS, perhaps you could explain how this is to be done on a system that is not bootable and hasn't got all the drivers and apps necessary to connect to the MoBo manufacturer's website installed.

This would be a problem. But I was not aware that it is a problem the original poster has. He mentions that their 250GB hard drive is not installed right now due to "trouble getting it to work since we reinstalled Windows 2k Pro a while back". But I got the impression from the rest of his post that the system was otherwise working.

Reflecting on it further, I have to admit I don't really know whether the OP would need a BIOS update to get beyond the 48-bit LBA limitation. I notice that all of the articles I've found about fixing this problem state that a BIOS update is necessary. However, I also know that I did not need to update my BIOS to get around the problem. This may be because of other fixes I had installed as part of the Intel chipset for my motherboard.

The OP's board is an AMD chipset and I don't know what applies. If it's available and he's willing to risk it, a BIOS update does not seem to be that dangerous a thing to attempt to me. But that's just my opinion. I agree it would not be a good idea to push the OP well past his comfort level.

John, your suggestion that one should edit the registry is unhelpful at best and stupidly reckless at worst. While many of the members here are competent to edit the registry, others aren't. In any case, editing the registry is a "last resort" and subject to a bunch of caveats that you neglected to mention.

Well, perhaps. But the registry edit suggestion does not originate so much with me as with all the other articles "out there" on the Internet which discuss how to get Win2K to recognize the entire capacity of a disk larger than 127GB. I'm really just pointing the OP toward them.

And as registry hacks go, this one is pretty easy. But if it makes you really nervous having a user do it, there's also a downloadable program available from the Maxtor website which will do the registry change. That way a user doesn't have to directly edit the registry. Here's a link: Maxtor Big Drive Enabler

Hmmm - which is easier and safer for ALL users, I wonder?

I also wonder about this. "Easier" and "safer" are things I have always found to be very much "in the eye of the beholder". I don't have any answers so I'm not going to debate this one. However, if the OP wants to pipe in with an opinion that would be worth hearing.

-john

 

[WizardOZ]

Well, between us we appear to have managed to hijack the thread, and we are definitely off-topic. I am willing to continue this discussion with you via PM, but what we are debating has nothing to do with the OP's questioin / request.

Mind you, the OP has declined to respond to a PM from me offerring to go into details, so I think that he has got what he needs out of the thread.

HAppy New Year.

 

[zjohnr]

I am willing to continue this discussion with you via PM ...

Thank you for the offer, but I think we're both good at this point.

Be well and may you (and everyone else on this thread) also have a safe and Happy New Year.

-john, the redundant legacy dinosaur