200GB (above 140GB) HDs on ECS K7S5A Pro?

[dchilder]

I just got a Fry's special (ECS K7S5A Pro with XP 1800+). I've got a 200GB HD right now that I have to use a PCI controller card because of my very old MB. I know the ECS is pretty old too, but I saw that someone on another forum said he could run a HD above 140GB on the motherboard fine. I was wondering if anyone else has done this, and if so, if you did it without the HD manufacturer's special utility to override a MB bios for large HD (e.g. I believe my WD drive came with a utility that I can run that would let me use the drive on any board-- I want to avoid this because I have a feeling it will require me to reformat the entire drive, which I don't really want to do.).

The ECS support info only shows that the HD can support drives over 100GB, and there is no info on whether the BIOS is 48-bit LBA compatible. Any comments suggestions? Thanks!

EDIT: Funny, I did a search here for ECS and didn't get anything relevant. However, Google found this thread, which addresses the same issue, but doesn't really get a straight answer from anyone who's tried this:

Previous thread

 

[HaroldW]

Dchilder:

To break the 120/137gig barrier you need two things, a controller with 48-bit LBA support and an OS patch (included in WinXP service pack 1.)

Your motherboard manual would state that it supports 48-bit LBA, if it did, or it might state that it supports ATA133 specifications. Which it doesn't. The ATA133 spec requires 48-bit LBA support, ATA100 spec does not require 48-bit LBA support. Therefore you need to get an IDE controller with 48-bit LBA support to take advantage of the full capacity of your 200gig hard drive. That was why I bought the retail WD 200gig hard drive as it includes a free 48-bit LBA controller card.

 

[Arcanedeath]

the ECS K7S5A supports 48bit LBA w/ the correct ide drivers from SiS, I've run a 200Gig drive and seen it's full capasity w/out issue on my box w/out a PCI controler. You do need a later bios from ECS to make this work as the inital boards didn't support it (seeing as you have a K7S5A Pro you should be ok though) Hope this helps...

 

[dchilder]

Thanks Arcanedeath. I've had nothing but problems with the piece of crap controller that WD includes with large drives. I've tried two, on two different motherboards, and both of them caused the system to stutter a little (momentary hangs), or worse. And I don't think that they were running as fast as they should. After the same problems with this board last night, I decided to just plug the 200GB directly into the MB before I read your reply, and it seemed to work fine. However, I did download a new version of the atapi.sys file, as recommended by Microsoft to prevent problems after going into Hibernation (Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 331958, Hard Disk May Become Corrupted When Entering Standby or Hibernation or When Writing a Memory Dump). I'll post again if I start having problems, but this runs MUCH better than it did on the controller card!

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
the ECS K7S5A supports 48bit LBA w/ the correct ide drivers from SiS, I've run a 200Gig drive and seen it's full capasity w/out issue on my box w/out a PCI controler. You do need a later bios from ECS to make this work as the inital boards didn't support it (seeing as you have a K7S5A Pro you should be ok though) Hope this helps...

the ecs k75sa pro support it everytime, the non-pro may need a bios flash, some of the older boards don't "officially" support it, so if it doesn't work the 1st time, flash your bios to the latest revision and you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[TheeeChosenOne]

Originally posted by: dchilder
Thanks Arcanedeath. I've had nothing but problems with the piece of crap controller that WD includes with large drives. I've tried two, on two different motherboards, and both of them caused the system to stutter a little (momentary hangs), or worse.

I completely concur with what you're saying. The WD controller card is extremely buggy and also makes my system stutter. Mouse arrow smooth movement even stutters when HD is working!!

:Q :frown:

 

[dchilder]

200GB is working fine on the motherboard with the January 2003 BIOS. However, I got an email reply back from ECS answering my question. They said that I would need PCI controller card to use the hard drive because the motherboard wouldn't support one that size. ??? It is working fine.... No stuttering either. I'm telling you, those WD controller cards suck.

 

[rudeguy]

I am with you on that dchilder...I got pissed and yanked that controller out...turns out my old k7s5a with bios from back in 2002 works find with my 180 gig

 

[Arcanedeath]

Tech support from ECS is pretty clueless, lol if you check out Sis's website and dig long enough they will tell ya 735 supports 48bit LBA as long as the bios does, and apperantly Tech support doesn't know what the programers for the bios are up too....