[Boothbay]

I just bought a larger hard drive and was told that I need a controller pci card in order for my system to be able to use all of its gigs. I know nothing about controller cards , prices , what and where to look for them. Can someone suggest where and what to ask about? Thanks

 

[DJ Specs]

Huh? Why would you need a controller card in order to use all the space on your hard drive? I dont think so... Not unless you have your current IDE channels already in use?

 

[Boothbay]

Controller card

Huh? Why would you need a controller card in order to use all the space on your hard drive? I dont think so... Not unless you have your current IDE channels already in use?


__________________
Oh Iz Dat Right, Eh?!

Because my computer's Bios, will not recognize more than 32gigs. Mine new drive is 60gigs. Someone said that I would be able to get full usage of the drive if I add a controller card. Does that make sense? I did ask for where I can get info on such an item..have you any?

 

[Der Rabe]

I would suggest going to you mother board manufactures website and updating your computer bios to the latest version. THat should allow you to access the whole drive. But on the other hand(and I could be wrong) I seem to remeber FAT32 has a max drive limit of 32 gig so you may have to make a second partition for the rest of the drive.

 

[TheTechIsIn]

How old is the system your using?, do you not have Eide channels on the MOBO and you will require a card that adds that feature...

Iv only seen this on 486 MOBO's, Pentium based boards did away with the old IDE channel addressing.

 

[Valiant]

Umm about updating the BIOS... it doesn't look good for that... Most of the PC's that only support 32GB also weren't flashable.... in other words it'd be something like $70 for a new chip to get the support, smacked on top of the price of the drive....

 

[Boothbay]

How old is the system your using?, do you not have Eide channels on the MOBO and you will require a card that adds that feature...

Iv only seen this on 486 MOBO's, Pentium based boards did away with the old IDE channel addressing.

Did I say IDE in my post? I don't think so. I don't even know what I got, except its a P3 500mhz Sony computer. I did say in my post, that the Bios could not be upgraded ( according to Sony ) and the limitation is 32 gigs. I could have more, providing I get a controller card pci. Its funny, I asked about what, where and etc about controller cards, and so far out of the 4 responses, none mentioned it.

 

[TheTechIsIn]

ok -- Take it easy,

1) You do have IDE because you sure as he11 don't have SCSI.

2) No ones addressed your original question directly because it seems very strange that an old controller card would help you to address space on a HD.

3) You can probably buy controller cards @ compUsa, Frys or MicroCenter however I doubt this is gonna help you... I think the person that told you a PCI controller card would help, did not understand the problem. As far as price controller cards run between $35-65 for the ones Iv seen.

You can also get cards online @ places like tigerdirect.com or pcmall.com or even Ebay.


On a different note: when you come to a free technical support forum and ask questions of a 100% VOLUNTEER staff, in the future I would have little less of an attitude in my posts. Everyone that responded did so in an effort to help you out, whether or not you realize that is not my problem.