Adding a hard drive for dimension 8200: max size=120 GB?

Question

I'm planning to install a second hard drive in my Dimension 8200 (from June 2002). Dell informed me that the maximium size of a hard drive is 120 GB. buying a 120 GB disk is a bit silly tody, since one gets a 200 GB for about the same price. So I wonder if there is a way to circumvent this limit? Does partitioning the drive into partitions that are smaller than 120 GB work? Is there an upgrade to the BIOS that removes the limitation? Partitioning the new drive seems to me to be an easy way of solving the problem, if it works. Some further thouhgts, not as important as the question above: What about the interface? I think I have ATA, either 66 or 100 MHz. If I buy a SATA disk, will it work also with my system? How much can I gain from buying a SATA disk and a separate controller card? Thanks for your help, Anders

ejn63 · Answer

With the latest BIOS and XP SP1 or 2, there is no limit on the drive size.

Your system will support any EIDE drive.

Other than the smaller cables, there's no advantage to SATA - SATA drives perform indistinguishably from their EIDE counterparts.

Anders K · Answer

Thanks for the reply.
I run XP SP2 so that should not be a problem, but Dell told me that there is a limit of 120 GB. How do I know if I have a BIOS version that supports larger disks than 120 GB? Do you have any idea if partitioning the disk will help, in case there is a limit/A

ejn63 · Answer

There is no such limit. Just make sure you have the latest BIOS for the system, and that you've enabled large drive support before you install the drive (see below).

If you're installing XP clean on a large drive, the XP install CD MUST have SP1 or SP2 on it already - an original XP CD will limit you to a 137G partition until the above are in place.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html

Lavenir · Answer

Addition to the last post.

Please make sure that you have intslled the latest BIOS for the 8200. Lastest BIOS is A09, downloadable from the dell support/download site. Follow the instuctions and make a bootable disc for the floppy. Insert the bootable disc into the floppy drive (A), Restart the computer and MAKE sure that you have no interruptions during the re-flashing of the BIOS. then Restart your system. The new BIOS should now see the larger hard drives without any problem. Using either the Dell system restore WIN XP CD, or the original hd, format the new hd. You should now not have any problems unless you have cabeling conflicts. Then check that the hd's are set for CS (cable select). These settings are on the back of the hard drives, and are labled cs. IF you need to change them, then you can place the jumpers to MS (master) and SL (slave) as indicated on the cases of the hard drives.

I have a 8200 with twin 250Gb Hd's and they work just fine.

Lav

Message Edited by Lavenir on 01-12-2006 09:20 PM

Anders K · Answer

Thanks Lavenir for the detailed information. I'll try to check which version of the BIOS I have. I suppose that can be found in the setup? I think I updated it a little while ago when I had problems with the CD and DVD units (see another thread here), and IIRC it is verion A09.

Have a nice weekend!

Anders

Anders K · Answer

By the way, I forgot asking if you have your disks partitioned? Is there a good reason to make several partitions? If so, how big? Cheers, Anders

Lavenir · Answer

There's no real reason to partition unless you are running different OS's. I run Win XP without any other OS. If you want, you can partition the HD's, but minimum would be 1/2 HD capacity if you use two different OS's, 1/3 if you run 3, etc. It really depends upon what you want your system to do. Most people just run the latest Win (of course making sure you have all the latest updates) without any problem. I can run several different apps (video editing/audio capturing-editing, etc) at the same time and the programs run just fine. Lav

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