Legacy WD1200 Support

[moonglum]

Can anyone tell me the minimum spec of a PC that will support the Western Digital 120gb Hard Disk Drive?

I have a Dell Optiplex GX1p (Pentium II 450 + 128mb RAM) and Dell just repeatedly tell me they know nothing about this drive and don't support it (which is nice).

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Old Man Moon.


A journey of a thousand miles
begins with just one step. :tongue:

 

[scamtrOn]

bios, chipset and ide interface dood.

you have enuf ram and cpu speed. the things that can be problems are bios, chipset and ide interface. also what windows are you runing?

<b><font color=orange>sing to prolong HDD life; spin right round like a record baby Right round round round

 

[moonglum]

Many thanks for that.

I was going to bung Windows NT 4/sp 5 on a 2gb partition and then create one big partition for the remaining disk space. Upgrade to XP later but not ready for that yet for lots of reasons.

I'll see if Dell are going to spill the beans about any support of this one at all.


<b>Moonglum Clampflower</b>

 

[scamtrOn]

www.motherboards.org

go there. if you know how to put a hdd in your sys, then you wont have a problem looking at the motherboard to find it s name or model number on there. once you have the name, that websit can be great help.

<b><font color=orange>sing to prolong HDD life; spin right round like a record baby Right round round round

 

[scamtrOn]

i forgot to mention one last thing, and that is that dell doesn't make their own motherboards or bios. therefore you can download the bios of the actual manufacturer of that motherboard, thus giving you more options in the bios or sometimes even expanding your options.

<b><font color=orange>sing to prolong HDD life; spin right round like a record baby Right round round round

 

[lhgpoobaa]

hmmm
judging by your system you may or maynot experience the 33.8Gb size problem. this is when the bios physically is not set up to recognise drives over 33.8gb in size.

the older the system the more troubles you will invaribly encounter.

if you do have troubles, i suggest you use a utility called Dynamic Drive Overlay.

<b>Before visiting THG i was a clueless noob. Now im still clueless, but look at my nice title!<b>

 

[moonglum]

Thanks Scamtron, this really helps. I have found that the Motherboard has got Dell stamped on it and judging by the links you have provided it is very difficult to find out the actual manufacturer of OEM motherboards.

I will not be defeated, with the backing of my company I shall pester Dell until I have an answer and go from there. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cheers

Moon.


<b>Moonglum Clampflower</b>

 

[moonglum]

Thanks LGHpoobah

I have found on the Dell web site various BIOS patches for Disks up to 75gb (or was that mb?? )

Cheers

Moon.

<b>Moonglum Clampflower</b>

 

[moonglum]

Hi Scamtron

I have sorted the problem. Very much RTFM. Historically I would always put the MASTER jumper setting on a drive when installing it as a single drive. However with these WD1200 drives, if installed singly, you must remove all jumpers.

On the Dell support point of view, I had two emails of note. To quote them

"Dell design their own motherboards using industry standard chipsets. The main chip is the INtel 810e. The I/O chip isn't quoted."

and

"120Gb is not offered, or supported. on any current Optiplex Product. It is on Precision 340/530 and the newer Dimensions."

This message is simply a sales pitch as the 120gb drives are fine in this Optiplex machine. Dell tech support is the worst!

Many, many thanks for all your help. Much appreciated.

Cheers

Moon.


<b>Moonglum Clampflower</b>

 

[OldBear]

A growing lists of reasons to NOT buy Dell.


<font color=blue><b>You get what you pay for...all advice here is free.</b></font color=blue>