Hard drive incompatibility?

[md99]

Hello folks,

I'm trying to help somebody out who is having trouble installing XP to a new hard drive (which he can't do) but he thinks it may be related to the mainboard.

Here's an email I recieved from him:

The motherboard is having problems with the hard drive, it detects it in bios, but when i try and install xp, the HD comes up as 131GB
rather than 750GB. I can't install xp on it. I've tried 3 versions,
but all of them fail and I get the blue screen of death before the
install goes ahead. Xp installed once when I wasn't even near the pc,
and then i saw the HD wasn't being detected properly, tried another
version of xp and it's still giving me the bluescreen of death when I
try and install any version of it.

It think the mother board doesn't support Serial ATA 3.0Gbps Interface
Support , it supports 1.5gbps. That can be changed, but I need to get
into dos for it. So pretty much stuck at the moment. Any ideas on what
I should try?

Does that make sense to any of you?

The mainboards is an ECS Elitegroup RS400-A model:

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pr...ailID=507&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=1&LanID=0

 

[BUFF]

afaik SB400 doesn't support SATA II & it doesn't matter whether or not he can get into the BIOS that can't be changed as it's hardware.
SATA II drives should be backward compatible to SATA I though (even if it means forcing them into SATA I compatability by means of jumper etc.).

The drive size being incorrectly detected sounds like he is using an original XP disk as iirc you need SP1 for larger than 132Gb support.

 

[md99]

Hmmm. Thanks for that. I've had a peek at the online manual:

The Southbridge integrates a Serial ATA host controller that is SATA v1.0 compliant, supporting four SATA ports with maximum transfer rate up to 150 MB/s each.

I take it that is the problem.

I feel like a bit of a **** now. You see, the PC is an old one belonging to me which I gave away. And now it looks like the new owner has to go to the hassle of exchanging the hard drive or getting a new motherboard.

I suppose that's a matter of personal choice but what would be the simplest solution? Exchange the hard drive to an older spec model?

 

[Shawk]

No point him buying another hard-drive. Just have him look on the back of the drive for where the small jumper needs to be and have him fit it. TBH he'll probably find its already there unless he's removed it. Normally fitted as default. With the jumper fitted it is a 150MB/S drive and should be compatible. It sounds to me like this is another issue.

 

[BUFF]

SB400 not supporting SATA II shouldn't be a problem as SATA II drives should work on a SATA I controller.

The incorrect HDD size detection is either an OS or BIOS limitation.
He needs XP SP1 or later for drives over 132GB (although he could always partition the HDD into several <132Gb) as imo that's more likely to be the problem than the BIOS but it may be worth checking for BIOS updates anyway.

The BSOD sounds to me more likely to be due to something like incorrect RAM settings.

 

[md99]

Thanks folks. I pointed him in the direction of this page and since have got one more email:

I'm using a copy of xp with SP3, but the version that did install was
SP1 (which has been formatted since then). I downloaded a utility for
the HD to set it to 1.5gbps, but it's still causing a problem. I'll
play around with it again and see if I can get it working on it. Don't
worry about paying for a mainboard, I'll buy that.

******** to all this. Think the handiest thing to do is just replace the board for him. The one in there is knocking on four years anyway.

Yeah?