are older machines compatible with newer HD's?

[DeeKnow]

i'm thinking of getting a bigger HD for my old 440BX based IBM desktop; the specs list the IDE interface as UDMA/33.

most of the newer 7200 drives are advertised as being ATA/133.

am i correct in assuming that the drives will work (without any adapters etc) in my machine, albeit at the 33MBps speed?

or are there other complications? like do I have to install other bits and drivers to format the 100GB+ capacity etc?? I'm running W2000

 

[stevty2889]

Hard drives are backwards compatible, so yes an ata133 drive will work at ata33. you may have to do a bios update to get a larger drive recognized, but not 100% sure about that.

 

[DaveSimmons]

You might need to upgrade the motherboard BIOS to support over 32 GB, and the update will probably only then support up to 130 GB.

For a 160+ GB drive you'd probably need a PCI drive controller with large drive support. Promise ones work well and sell for $30-40 new and $20-25 in FS/FT forum.