quick possibly dumb question concerning comp. hard drives capacity limits

[dweller]

what specifically limits a computer to be able to handle only up to a certain limit of a hard drive capacity?
mine only can support a 80gb hard drive (i read this somewhere and can't find it now) and i'm trying to help a friend install a larger drive on a homebuilt computer he has (built by someone else, so NO documentation available)....

if there is an easy answer on this, please inform me.
i'm going looking on google in the meantime, but i suspect i will be overwhelmed with the info there.

it's a pc, running win98, i recall seeing an 'Antec' label on the front of the cpu not that it means anything...

thanks in advance.
dp

[Endangered Specie]

1. The Hard Drives size and spin speed...

drives >80GB are bigger and spin faster. your compy wasnt built to handle them (old).

[dweller]

3. okay, i got that

but in looking at another computer, what do i use to determine what it may handle.

i've already told him (my BIL) that he's most likely limited to 60-80gb, but wanted to see if i could determine if it's more
or possibly less...

assuming it's older (has a 2gb and a 6gb drive now full to capacity) should i just go for 80gb and hope for the best?

thanks
dp

[Endangered Specie]

5. Well, whatever HD the new comp comes with is a good estimate...

if the company lets you customize it, see which range of harddrives they offer with that particular model.

I havent seen a single digit Gb HD in a long time. I need to know what you want to do with the compy beofre I tell you what HD to go for.

If all else fails, get an external one.

[dweller]

8. external HD

that's a thought.

well, he doesn't run too many apps, several peripherals, is storing digital pics galore. I think mostly his problem is his 2 drives are full, and he had a virus that was kicking it that i found and cleaned out. But boosting him to a larger HD and more RAM will take care of it, and maybe a cd burner (which he's not interested in, but would help with the digital pic storage, if i can convince him)

thanks for your advice.
dp

[The Shadow]

2. Check The Mainboard Specs.

Determine what kind of mainboard your friend has and look it up online. You should be able to find out what kind of drive controllers and their capacities are on the board. That is generally what I do if I have no documentation for the motherboard on PC's I work on.

[dweller]

4. thanks

that's what i was hoping for, so the motherboard specs, rather than processor, bus, etc ...

dp

[TreasonousBastard]

6. It's in the BIOS...

and the BIOS might be upgradeable to handle larger drives.

It has something to do with how many bits are allocated to some damn thing, and older bus limits.

BUT, Windows overrides the BIOS and can handle still larger drives.

An old HP I have is BIOS limited to 8 GB drives, and the 20 and 40 GB drives I temporarily put in it were recognized on startup as just 8GB, but Windows read the whole drives, albeit a bit slowly.

[dweller]

7. that's what i thought

mine had 4gb originally, and i put in a 40gb along with the 4gb (left the os on the 4 as master, the 40 as slave). Later the 4 started failing and switched all to the 40 and trashed the 4, and run from the 40gb just fine.

but in the meantime, i found i couldn't handle over 60-80gbs for some reason, and can't find the documentation as to why...so that led to my OP.

i'm going to recommend he upgrades RAM along with the harddrive upgrade, i seriously doubt he'll need more than 60gbs for his apps, but want to deliver the most bang for his buck.

thanks
dp

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Best to stay with..

what you know works. A second drive could always be added.

Reading things like Ultra-ATA specs makes my head hurt and scares the cat. Somewhere, somehow, there's address space on the bus with only a certain number of cylinders or clusters, or something, addressable. Or something like that.

Windows fakes the addresses, but you never know just how well that's going to work when the drive gets really big.

[HarveyBriggs]

9. Why not buy a Mac?

Al Gore is on their B.O.D., too.

And Al got them to put this swell feature in called, "Secure Empty Trash" which conforms to government security guidlines by overwriting deleted files seven times.

It'll come in handy, next time Mr. Ashcroft stops by when you're out and wants to know how "American" you are.

Harvey Briggs