Can I use a large drive with an old BIOS with reduce storage

[paulsiu]

Hi,

My mother has an older computer that has ATA-66. This mean the maximum supported disk size is around 137 GB.

It's getting kind of hard to find a drive these days that small unless you go online. If I buy a 160 GB drive, will it work even if it only shows 137 GB. Is this harmful to the drive at all?

Out of curiousity, if we do this, does the data get written on the outer or inner part of the drive?

Paul

 

[zagood]

From Seagate:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/in...4090aRCRD&locale=en-US

Are the Ultra ATA/33, Ultra ATA/66 and Ultra ATA/100 interfaces backward compatible?

All Seagate Ultra ATA/100 drives are backward compatible with Ultra ATA/33, Ultra ATA/66, and legacy ATA interfaces. However, due to the inability of some ATA host controllers and motherboards to properly interface with Ultra ATA drives, Seagate suggests using the "toggle" utility to set the Ultra ATA/100 drives to Ultra ATA/33 or Ultra ATA/66 mode for better compatibility with a non-ATA/100 host controller or motherboard.

Will performance be affected if I have to set an Ultra ATA/100 disk drive to a slower speed in order to maintain compatibility with my system?

Changing the transfer mode affects only the external transfer rate of the device. If an Ultra ATA/100 device is configured for a slower transfer mode, its maximum speed will of course be limited to the maximum burst transfer rate of that mode. However, the internal performance is not affected by the external transfer mode, therefore the sustained transfer rate will not be as drastically affected as the maximum (burst) transfer rate.

 

[taltamir]

Is this harmful to the drive at all?

No