Which port should I connect my hard disk to?

[downhiller80]

My MSI K8T motherboard has 3 IDE connectors (and 4 SATA). I have a 180GB 180GXP - which one should I connect it to?

IDE1 and IDE2 are grouped together and the manual says

"32bit enhanced pci ide and ultra dma 66/100/133 controller that provides pio mode 0-5"

IDE3 is separated from the other two on the board and says:

"ide3 is a 32bit enhanced pci ide and ultra dma 66/100/133 controller that provides pio mode 0-6"

What is PIO mode 6? Is that what I need to recognise drives over 180GB since w2k is currently appearing to format my drive as only 130GB..... (I put it on IDE1)


cheers

 

[John]

Your IBM is an ATA100 drive (DMA Mode 5), so just connect it to IDE1.

48-Bit LBA Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows 2000

 

[downhiller80]

cheers, i found my problem was that win2k thing. I've installed w2k on a 10gb drive i had, servicepacked it and am now formatting the drive to 180gb.

but when i reboot to install windows on this 180gb drive, the windows CD *isn't* service packed so won't it puke when I try to get it to install on a 180gb drive?

cheers

 

[John]

If it were me I'd create a 10GB c: partition and install 2K on it, then apply SP4, then use disk management to partition and format the rest of the drive. There's nothing wrong with having 2 partitions, and in fact I have 2 on my rig. I like installing all of my programs and backups on the d: and it also keeps the c: from fragmenting so quickly.

 

[downhiller80]

i think i might just do that john, just old habits die hard

 

[John]

Originally posted by: sebfrost
i think i might just do that john, just old habits die hard

Tell me about it.