Computers

[Mable]

I have an old Windows 98 system, only 3Gig hard drive and want to relace it with a much bigger hard drive. I have been told that my board (AMI) will not support a big drive. I was wondering how do I find out how big a drive it will support? Can I partition a big drive into smaller ones that the board will accept? I want to transfer the OS onto the new drive and keep the old drive for storage. Is this hard? Any good websites I can go to where this is explained? I know almost nothing about this stuff but want to get literate so I can work with my computers better. Thanks for any advice.

 

[wollensak]

Yes, you can partition a hard drive logically into several different drives. I don't think that is the issue though. You can buy a whole new box pretty cheaply and not have any compatibility issues. Trying to update old boxes is interesting in theory but quickly becomes really annoying as you try to debug
problems caused by incompatibility of different generations of hardware and software.

 

[strange1]

Some larger hard drives come with a pci control card which allows older boards to use a big drive. Of course, the easy way is to get a copule hundred bucks and upgrade to something more modern.

 

[HappyHookers]

get an adapter.

I had the same problem. My BIOS wouldn't accecss anything over a 10gig {this is back in the P1 days} and the promise card wouldn't work on my BIOS, so I got an adapter that plugs from your motherboard to the adapter then do the hard drive. Mine was a ATA Adapter, it was like 60 bucks, easy to install, worked like a charm.

HH

PS, you can still partition, make primary and slave drives. Just in case you wanted to know