Info about XP and SATA PLEASE!!!!

[pysyrian]

Here's the question in its basic form; When installing SATA hard drives with an XP SP1 install, do you have the 127 gig limits just like regular old IDE hard drives??


I have a situation unique in it's scenario. I'm building a pc for the first time (yeah I'm still new!!!heh) So, anyway, I'm basing the entire build around this AardvarkQ10 pci card/interface.

Problems have arisen with my current setup that, after doing some research, found that the drivers to my card are conflicting with windows service pack 2 (which is what I'm running on it) to the point which has caused corruption of my system32 registry . I've come to the conclusion that a much better route of action for me would be to build an entire new computer with just WindowXP with SP1 (which the drivers have no conflict at all) rather than purchase a new audio card with interface at around $2000 .

I would consider trying to keep my current setup but I cannot run my 320g hardrive without SP2!!! and doing audio recording is very harddrive consuming, I need massive space.

Anyways the relevance is that I'm gonna get SATA harddrives and this will be my first experience installing motherboards, bios settings, installing xp onto sata, blah blah....

and I'm understanding from some threads that with XP SP1 install I will still have the IDE harddrive limitation on a SATA drive?

If so, I'll probably just buy like four SATA drives I just don't wanna drop the cash for 1T drive and not even be able to use it!!!

 

[khelben1979]

If the drivers for your soundcard is conflicting with XP service pack 2, then maybe you should get a different version of those sound drivers?

Also you could try with Windows XP service pack 3 also.

Apparently driverguide.com has drivers for that soundcard according to this forum.

 

[pysyrian]

(for the people who don't want the full story....)
Long story short...will my Two 640G western digital sata harddrives work to full capacity on XP sp1?

(those of you who would like to know why I'm in this predicament...read on!)

Yeah, I've got the most recent drivers the 7.13 version but it still does this system hang thing sometimes and every once in a great while, after it hangs and I reboot it'll corrupt some system32 registry value where it won't even boot!!! complete windows re-install...where all I have is an upgrade sp2 xp disc and a xp home restoration disc for a dell

Here's the forum with another guy who had the exact same issues. EN is his user name. pretty much took all the steps he did.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=375414

I came across two other forums that said pretty much all that same stuff about system hang, sp2 conflicts (something about re-writing the binary or somethin), sp1 fixing the issue of hangs entirely.....I just can't re-find those other forum pages though.

(EDIT...Here's one of the pages of interest that I did re-find. The post of interest is from patsplat

http://www.audioforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-13723.html

EDIT)

I had it narrowed down to either when the system goes into sleep or hibernation mode that actually causes the system hang. But, the potential for corruption on shut down and boot up is still a very real threat hanging over my head.

I finally got my new system now and got all the parts assembled to where I can go into the BIOS. I just haven't got an XP full install disk yet.
My specs are as follows;
jetway ha04 motherboard
amd athlon 64 x2 6000+ dual core processor
ati sapphire dual dvi 256mb vid card
Two 640G western digital 32mb cache harddrives (sata)
two cd roms
and a floppy
Anyways I'm pretty sure all this stuff would function with xp sp1 installed,
I'm just still wary of my western digital lifegaurd tools cd....during it's format session it's saying that some systems cannot handle more than 137g of space under recommended install. Yet it allows to format to maximum capacity when under advanced installation option just gives an ominous warning about potential for data loss on an incompatible system.......

Long story short...will my Two 640G western digital sata harddrives work to full capacity on XP sp1?

 

[khelben1979]

Since partitions will have a maximum capacity of 137GB, you can probably utilize all the disk space if you create several partitions on each harddisk.

There's an old document from Seagate here which might give some light on how things works.

 

[pysyrian]

Sweet! Thanks for the info man!!! That's really informative stuff.

Now I gotta cross my fingers and hope the "stars align"
...such as slipstreaming my sata drivers into the windows xp disc, potential hardware conflicts of the aardvark with my amd processor and/or motherboard chipset, getting this booted up with programs and all!

hey, but that's another story, and once again, Thanks for the help!!!

 

[khelben1979]