Do some older Motherboards not take 80 wire HD's?

[PlatinumGold]

i'm trying to upgrade an older motherboard cash register for a client. it's a dos based cash register. it uses an older hd.

he wants a newer hd in it because he feels they are faster. i've seen this on one of his other machines.

but for some reason, this one won't take the new PATA hd i've got for it. it's a western digital.

is this normal?

 

[aka1nas]

How old is the register? Older machines can't address larger harddrives, though I think it would still show up with reduced capacity.

 

[allanon1965]

yes it is normal, try an older smaller drive with a 40 pin cable....

 

[Zepper]

Yes, new hard drives are backward compatible - how far is the question. (I checked and it looks like the slowest the WD Caviar drives can deal with is PIO4/DMA2 - 16MB/sec.) Does the mobo in question have PCI slots? Also WDs have TWO options for Master - be sure to use the appropriate option "Master/Stand-Alone position OR the Master w/Slave position. Using a good 40-wire cable may help as well. Some drives also have jumper settings to limit the capacity seen by the mobo. Couldn't hurt to try those if all else fails.
. Perhaps one of the controllers I have for sale on eBay would fix you up and allow the use of full capacity: Linkage

.bh.

 

[PlatinumGold]

i couldn't get the WD to work no matter what i did.

a Samsung drive i had in stock allowed me the option of limiting it to 32 gb. this did the trick.

apparently, if you go back far enough, the new hd's are not backward compatible.

 

[corkyg]

32 GB is the limit imposed by the system BIOS. As for 40 wire and 80 wire cables, in both cases the connectors are 40 pins - no difference. It is just that the older mobo will not use the 2-way street (each pin has 2 wires for coming and going.)

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: corkyg
32 GB is the limit imposed by the system BIOS. As for 40 wire and 80 wire cables, in both cases the connectors are 40 pins - no difference. It is just that the older mobo will not use the 2-way street (each pin has 2 wires for coming and going.)

your right. it isn't the number of wires that is the issue.

apparently some older Bioses cannot handle any hd over 32 gb.

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: corkyg
32 GB is the limit imposed by the system BIOS. As for 40 wire and 80 wire cables, in both cases the connectors are 40 pins - no difference. It is just that the older mobo will not use the 2-way street (each pin has 2 wires for coming and going.)

Aren't the extra 40 wires just used to help stop EMI? I didn't think they actually transported data.

 

[Zepper]

Yes, the extra wires are just grounds to keep some noise off the signal wires and I think they are only connected at the mobo end which is why the 80-wire cable won't work if you try to use them wrong way 'round.

.bh.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yes, the extra wires are just grounds to keep some noise off the signal wires and I think they are only connected at the mobo end which is why the 80-wire cable won't work if you try to use them wrong way 'round.

.bh.

Pretty sure you can use an 80 wire cable either way around. I have done it myself many times and still gotten ata 100 speeds and no problems.

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yes, the extra wires are just grounds to keep some noise off the signal wires and I think they are only connected at the mobo end which is why the 80-wire cable won't work if you try to use them wrong way 'round.

.bh.

Pretty sure you can use an 80 wire cable either way around. I have done it myself many times and still gotten ata 100 speeds and no problems.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure those extra wires don't do ANYTHING other than cut down on signal noise. You only need them when running at ATA/66 speeds or higher if memory serves me correctly.

 

[batmanuel]

What jumper setting did you use for the WD drive? They usually have THREE settings, instead of the usual two: Master, Slave and Single Drive. If it is the only drive on the cable, you have to use the Single Drive setting (which is usually set by taking the jumper off or parking it by putting it sideways on thge pins instead of up and down). Otherwise the drive will not be seen by the mobo. I spent half an hour trying to figure out why my first WD drive would not be seen by my mobo when I had it set to Master before I resorted to RTFM and learned about the magic jumper setting.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
What jumper setting did you use for the WD drive? They usually have THREE settings, instead of the usual two: Master, Slave and Single Drive. If it is the only drive on the cable, you have to use the Single Drive setting (which is usually set by taking the jumper off or parking it by putting it sideways on thge pins instead of up and down). Otherwise the drive will not be seen by the mobo. I spent half an hour trying to figure out why my first WD drive would not be seen by my mobo when I had it set to Master before I resorted to RTFM and learned about the magic jumper setting.

i tried all 4 settings. Master (Single, no jumper), Master with Slave, Slave and Cable select. the bios didn't recognize the hd in any of the configurations. i reset the bios between tries. nothing worked.

the samsung drive had the master, cable select, slave thing. it also has the option of master with 32 gb max. first time i'd actually seen one of those. viola it worked like a charm.

 

[RaiderJ]

Some older WD drives have a "special" setting, which is a jumper on the master section, and then another on I believe the CS section. Not sure if that applies to newer drives. If nothing else, look on Google for some drive overlay software - that should allow you to bypass BIOS limitations