Will SATA Card Work?

Scott

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Jul 10, 2008, 12:15:36 AM7/10/08

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I'm thinking of purchasing a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive,
7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM from www.tigerdirect.com for my 6-year old
Gateway WinXP Pro desktop. I know I need to deteremine if my BIOS will
support a drive this large. I'm also looking at getting a Masscool XWT-PCIE11
Internal SATA, 3-Port PCI Express Card for $19.95. Will this card allow
the SATA drive to work properly in my system? I've never used a SATA drive
before.

Thanks!
Scott

Shenan Stanley

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Jul 10, 2008, 12:36:35 AM7/10/08

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A controller card will bypass your BIOS - so yes.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Andy

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Jul 10, 2008, 4:32:35 AM7/10/08

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A computer six years old is unlikely to have any SATA interface, and
definitely won't have a PCI-E interface. You need a card with a
standard PCI connector such as the XWT-RC018.

Anteaus

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Jul 10, 2008, 4:44:09 AM7/10/08

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Some add-on SATA cards don't permit booting from the attached drive.
(Technically, some cards don't have their own BIOS, so are not visible until
after the OS has loaded.) If you need the SATA disk to be your main drive,
check this aspect.

Also, are you sure your computer has PCI-Express slots? I don't think they
existed six years ago. Best to have a look inside. A PCI-E machine will have
one or two long slim slots (16-bit) and a number of very short ones. A PCI
machine will have a number of same-length, chunkier white slots.

--------------------------
"This is a wonderful computer. It''s 20yrs old and absolutely reliable.
And, in all that time it''s only had four mobos, six processors, two cases,
seven OS''s ...."

Shenan Stanley

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Jul 10, 2008, 10:28:48 AM7/10/08

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Scott wrote:
> I'm thinking of purchasing a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard
> Drive, 7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM from www.tigerdirect.com for my
> 6-year old
> Gateway WinXP Pro desktop. I know I need to deteremine if my BIOS
> will support a drive this large. I'm also looking at getting a
> Masscool XWT-PCIE11 Internal SATA, 3-Port PCI Express Card for
> $19.95. Will this card allow
> the SATA drive to work properly in my system? I've never used a
> SATA drive before.

Shenan Stanley wrote:
> A controller card will bypass your BIOS - so yes.

Somehow I missed that you said "PCI Express" after saying your machine was 6
years old.

You probably will want to find a PCI card or at least confirm what you can
put in your computer.

Scott

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Jul 10, 2008, 2:33:28 PM7/10/08

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Anteaus,

OK, I'll check it out and report back.

Scott

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Jul 11, 2008, 1:39:08 AM7/11/08

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Shenan Stanley,

I'm thinking of just using a WD 250GB drive as a new boot drive. How
can I tell if the BIOS will support this larger drive?

Thanks!
Scott

Shenan Stanley

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Jul 11, 2008, 3:44:57 AM7/11/08

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<snip>
Entire thread - in its entirety:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers/browse_frm/thread/6854c232d61b0a31/be95f8519ce4fbf8#be95f8519ce4fbf8

Scott wrote:
> I'm thinking of just using a WD 250GB drive as a new boot drive.
> How can I tell if the BIOS will support this larger drive?

The ways to be completely sure is to read the user manual for your
motherboard or contact the manufacturer of your motherboard for assistance
or try it (the latter being the least favorable option - hah.)

If you can post what the Make/Model of your computer is - perhaps someone
here can tell you more about it (maybe even point you to the online
downloadable manual, etc.) If it is not a system like a Dell, HP, Gateway,
IBM - you could install Belarc Advisor and find out what the
mainboard/motherboard is and post that part here and maybe someone can help
you with that information available to them.

Twayne

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Jul 12, 2008, 8:42:13 PM7/12/08

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Since it's a Gateway, all you need is your serial # and contact Gateway
suppport online or phone their 800. They can answer your question
easily. They'll have your exact shipped configuration, invoice, the
whole shot. I found out my capabilities just by downloading the mother
board and parts list; it had the SATA connectors pointed out on it, and
in anohter place I found the rev etc. of the SATA controller it used and
what versions of SATA it would support.
My machine is a little newer than yours but you should be able to get
the same info from them.

kamal12

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Jul 12, 2008, 11:29:54 PM7/12/08

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Hello,

Normaly we have roaming profiles but
I have a few Windows XP PCs where i want only allow local profiles.
I know there is a Group Policy, but i dont want use that.
instead is there a registry key or something es where i can set the PC
to
use local Profiles only

Thanks
Kamal sab

--
kamal12

Twayne

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Jul 13, 2008, 11:29:54 AM7/13/08

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What does that have to do with SATA drives? You need to start your own
thread.