Largest disk capacity for Dimension 4100?

Question

Hi all, I have a Dimension 4100 purchased probably in 2001, and it currently has two 80 gig hard drives (Western Digital 800 JB).

As my requirements keep increasing (I have a huge amount of photos from my digital camera) storage requirements are going up, and I would like to have around 200-250 gigs of disk space on it.

What's the largest disk I can use with the Dimension 4100? I've read that some machines have a 137GB constraint, i.e., the machine will not recognize a disk larger than 137GB. Is this a constraint with the Dimension 4100? Can it handle a 200 gig HDD?

Has anyone tried this? Thanks.

[PS: no plans of buying a new system, so it's the HDD's which have to be upgraded]

Majestic · Answer

The BIOS in the 4100 won't support a drive larger than a 137 gigs.  For that you will need to install an ATA controller card.  Some 4100 owners have gotten around the BIOS limitation by using Intel's Application Accelerator which is support by your chipset and using either Windows XP with at least SP1 installed or Windows 2000 with at least SP3.  Click here for Intel Application Accelerator.

4300User · Answer

Do you know if the 4300 has the same restrictions?  I was told by customer service that the 4300 only recognizes 120GB.  This will probably do me fine for a while but just curious.   Thanks, Steven

kraterz · Answer

Thanks Majestic, it looks like I'm going to have to convince my SO that an upgrade is really and truly needed. Just the excuse I'm looking for :)

osprey4 · Answer

Tell your SO that your system detected a very obscure error, which will require a $250 repair. Then run to the store, grab a new drive and tell her how much money you just saved by doing it yourself.

Majestic · Answer

4300User, according to your system specs your model's chipset is the 845.  That is one of the chipsets support by the Intel Application Accelerator.  The best I can say is give it a try when the time comes and see how it works.  Worse case scenario is having to spend another $30 for a controller card which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The controller card will give you additional IDE ports in your system.  This can be useful for installing mulitple hard drives and for spreading out your CD drives on their own port.

osprey4 · Answer

Steven: Majestic provided a link above.

4300User · Answer

Majestic,

What is Intel Application Accelerator?

I have two HDD in my system totaling 120 GB (40 & 80). When I added the 80GB I was originally looking to add an internal drive of around 250GB, the Dell Rep told me I could do that but my system would only recognize a portion of the new drive because my system would only "recognize" 120GB of HDD space. I'm not sure why this is or if it is even accurate. I certainly hope it is accurate since Dell lost about $150 in sales on suggesting I go with the 80GB HDD.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Steven

4300User · Answer

I'm a little confused by the instructions from Intel.   It says on the first page of the link if you are running XP go to 'Large HDD Installation Instructions'   In this section under Large Drive as a secondary, it states to download the application accelerator.   What does the Application Acclecerator do???     Just a thought................. did the CS rep @ Dell mean that the 4300 would only recognize 120GB per controller?  If so I could just partition the (250GB) into 3.  That would make more since than120GB for the machine (which is what I understood his statement as).   Bottom line when my secondary (Maxtor) fails, if it fails, can I replace it with a 250GB internal HDD?   Thanks again,   Steven

4300User · Answer

Thanks Osprey, I missed that.

osprey4 · Answer

The IAA is an enhancement to your chipset drivers. The maximum size referred to by Dell is the per drive size, so of course you could have two of those per controller. Another alternative would be to add a controller card, then you could use any size drive you like.

Majestic · Answer

4300User,  as I stated before.... some 4100 owners have gotten around the BIOS limitation on the hard drive size by using the Intel Application Accelerator.  The best you can do on your 4300 is give it a try and see if it works.  Personally, I would just spend another $30 and get a PCI ATA Controller card.  The controller card is guaranteed to work and will support any size hard drive as Osprey4 had mentioned.

kraterz · Answer

Folks thanks for your inputs, after quite a bit of consideration we upgraded to a new machine. It's a 5150 with 2 gigs of RAM, 3.2GHz p4, 250 gig HDD, etc. Runs wonderful now. She was convinced that it would last another 5+ years at least, seeing that my old Dimension 4100 is that old.

osprey4 · Answer

Good to hear. Wish you all the best with the new machine!

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Largest disk capacity for Dimension 4100?

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