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Dimension 8400 disk drives and interfaces.
Hello all
Machine is a Dimension 8400 running Win XP Pro with SP3. So.....old hat stuff. I've a few questions regarding disks and disk interfaces.
1. The machine is fitted with BIOS Version A03, dated 10/11/2004 - this is (I think) in the US format for dates. Somewhere in the BIOS there is probably a very large number which controls the largest size of disk the machine can see and format. As an example from another manufacturer, an HP Kayak Series 1 machine has this number set to 137 Gbyte in the BIOS.
So does anyone know:
(a) how big the number is for the 8400 (there is no clue in the official Dell Specifications) and
(b) at what address in the BIOS the number is located?
2. The machine has 4 SATA ports, labelled SATA 0 -3. Does anyone know which of the SATA standards these ports conform to. Possible answers are SATA 1 (1.5 Gbit/sec MTR maximum transfer rate), SATA 2 (3 Gbit/sec MTR) and SATA 3 (6Gbit/sec MTR).
From the dates the standards were published, I would guess that these ports are SATA 1 (or possibly SATA 2), but again the official Dell specifications give no information.
3. In an earlier period, when IDE/PATA drives were common, the cables from the motherboard to the disk had two connectors, and thus two disks could be connected. One had to be jumpered as the master (or bootable) and the other was jumpered as a slave drive. When the machine was booted, all the disk partitions found were assigned drive letters. In a two disc set up with each disk having multiple partitions, the first partition on the master disk was assigned C:, then the first partition on the slave became D:. Following this, all the remaining partitions on the master were assigned letters starting from E:...... Finally, all the partitions after D: on the slave were assigned drive letters starting after the last partition/drive letter on the master disk. Got that?
So how is it with SATA? Do the drives need to be jumpered? How are the drive letters assigned during booting in a multi-disk set up with multiple partitions on each disk?
4. Now we come to the difficult bit. Actually, I do not use IDE/PATA/SATA drives on this machine - in fact I have rarely used drives using this protocol since early 1981; the current machine has an Adaptec SCSI adaptor and therefore has an SCSI disk. You will thus see that I am relatively speaking an IDE virgin and know little about this technology and even less about SATA
The question is can I attach a SATA drive and use the machine in a mixed protocol configuration? How are the drive letters assigned in a mixed protocol configuration? How do you nominate the bootable disk - is this handled solely by the BIOS boot order or by some other method?
Trusting somebody in the community can help me out and thanks in advance for any help that can be given.
Kind regards
CoventryKid
datapod
371 Posts
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November 5th, 2015 08:00
I can answer some of those. I still have an 8400 though I haven't used it in several years.
1.) It will take a SATA drive up to 2TB. I have no knowledge of address locations in BIOS. (the most recent version of which BTW is A09)
2.) This machine has the Intel 925X Express chipset which makes the SATA standard 1.5 GBps Serial ATA (aka SATA v.1)
3.) Dell computers of this vintage came configured with their PATA drives jumpered "cable select' rather than "master/slave." As such Primary/Secondary drive status was determined by the drives position on the cable, "master" being at the end of the cable and "slave" being on the center. (FYI for cable select to work, an IDE/EIDE drive must have its jumpers set to CS and be using a cable that supports cable select)
SATA has no jumpers and drives are assigned in BIOS SATA0, SATA1, SATA2 etc... according to the port into which they are plugged.
Drive letters are assigned by the OS and are configurable in disk management in XP and since. The OS drive is typically C:\ Drive letters are generally assigned by windows in alphabetical order based on availability. (i.e.... if there's a C: and an optical drive called D: the next drive plugged in and initialized will generally get E: although we are talking Windows where anything can and often does happen :emotion-5:
4.) As I have no experience using a SCSI daughter card in this computer I will speculate. I see no problem using a mixed drive configuration.
I imagine the daughter board handles it's own BIOS for attached SCSI drives and the Dell BIOS should pick up new drives attached directly to the MOBO. (note: There is a setting in the BIOS for each individual SATA port to set them on/off and they can exhibit peculiar behavior if a drive is attached to a port set to off)
Boot priority can be set for the onboard controllers in the Dell BIOS though how this will work with the SCSI adapter in play I can't say. A little basic experimentation I suspect is going to be the only way you're really going to find out.
HTH
D
CoventryKid
5 Posts
0
November 5th, 2015 10:00
Datapod
Datapod
Thank for your prompt and comprehensive reply.
FYI, some experimentation this afternoon has shown I can configure the booting of the SCSI drive just as a normal IDE drive is configured i.e. the main BIOS has knowledge of it because the SCSI BIOS is the first BIOS to run. It presumably raises a flag to say 'I am here'.
Do you have the A09 BIOS on your 8400, and would you recommend that I install this version? Where could I download this from?
I was unaware that I could configure the drive letter assignments in XP to differ from the standard assignments; must have a look at this later - thanks for the tip. Just shows what an old git I am - over 70, using computers since 1965 and I can go to bed tonight with a warm glow because somebody has pointed me in the direction of something new! Thanks
Kind regards
CoventryKid
datapod
371 Posts
0
November 5th, 2015 10:00
"Do you have the A09 BIOS on your 8400, and would you recommend that I install this version? Where could I download this from?"
I do. As I recall I installed this to resolve a crashing situation regarding some newer hardware but it's been years and I don't recall the details.
www.dell.com/.../drivers;rvps=y
My usual advise regarding BIOS updates is install them if it resolves an issue or supports new hardware specific to your needs. (good luck finding a changelog for Dell BIOS versions)
Rare as it is I'm sure you're aware that a bad BIOS flash generally means a new system board. Finding one for the 8400 might prove to be a challenge.
I'd guess you have a specific task in mind for this old workhourse so I'd advise put it together. Test it. If it's stable and meeting your needs leave the BIOS alone. If you get crashes or it is otherwise unstable consider flashing it.
HTH
D
CoventryKid
5 Posts
0
November 6th, 2015 07:00
Datapod
Thanks for the added information. The machine is currently running, but is in dire need of a clean out followed by an OS re-install and then application re-installations. It is used for mainly technical stuff - engineering calculations, image processing on a microscope, design studies, CAD, etc. So I thought I might try improving the performance a little by fitting an SSD just for the OS and paging file, increasing the local disk size and alter the configuration of the NAS attached to it to give greater storage capacity.
Kind regards
CoventryKid