Hitatchi 1TB SATA HDD not recognized by 8 year old BIOS

[jfletcher2]

I have an 8 year old computer (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=431077&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us) that has the stock motherboard. The computer is in good condition overall but the HDD is very old. It is an IDE drive and needs to be replaced. I got a 1TB Hitachi SATA drive on the cheap and want to clone the disk.

The motherboard has 2 SATA ports. (The BIOS doesn't say anything about the SATA controller btw). I have plugged in an old SATA laptop HDD and the BIOS recognizes it just fine. I plug the Hitachi drive into the same exact place and the BIOS won't recognize it. I don't get it. Any ideas?

Follow questions welcomed to help me solve this.

 

[dingo07]

Yeah, 8 years ago 1TB was not even a thought- you need to get something in the neighborhood of 250GB. Your only other option is to get a PCI sata card and use that to connect the 1TB drive. But then you're putting more money into the old machine.

I say, if it has IDE it's a dinosaur and should be left to the museum. Build a new one with a relatively new motherboard and you'll have no issues.

 

[j2j663]

I still have and use a laptop that is 8yrs old. I hope you don't run into the same problem that I did. The motherboard in my Laptop actually will not recognize anything more than 137GB on any HDD. Windows can't even see anything more than 137GB where as Linux can see but cannot use it (I have a 160GB HDD).

 

[fzabkar]

@jfletcher2, your motherboard uses VIA's VT8237 SATA controller:

Motherboard Specifications, A7V8X-LA (Kelut):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00069442&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&lc=en&product=431077

The VT8237 is limited to an interface rate of 1.5Gbps. It will not work with 3Gbps or 6Gbps HDDs unless the HDDs can be jumpered for 1.5Gbps (eg Seagate or WD), or unless their firmware can be modified to suit (eg Samsung).

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Sata_via

 

[jfletcher2]

Best answer selected by jfletcher2.