adding a hard disk

I would like to add a hard disk to my 5-year old desktop computer. My current hard disk is 18 GB. I have WindowsXPPro installed, and FAT32.
I tried to read about it but now I am confused. My computer's specs tell me I can use a 33 ATA-HD or a 66 ATA-HD with a special controller. Shops on the internet offer 100 ATA or more HDs.
Is it still possible to expand my PC with a new HD?
And if so, up to what size (GB) could I choose?
Or maybe my first question should be: which specifications of my system determine whether this is possible? (You see I don't know much about this subject.)

Thanks in advance.

 

Yup, just add the new drive. I would advise formatting as NTFS though.

 

I believe that the motherboard's IDE controller and (possibly) the IDE cable your currently using with the 20 GB hard drive would be what to check.

The 33 and 66 ATA information there is talking about the data transfer rate. An ATA-100 hard drive should transfer the data at the ATA-33 or 66 rates. So the newer drives will work in your computer.

It may also be possible to purchase and use a PCI IDE controller card to put allow for ATA-100 transfer rates (but that depends on the motherboard and whether there is an open PCI slot in your computer). I'm not really sure about that, hopefully someone else can step in with that info.

 

As regards using an ATA100 HDD on an ATA66 board, that should not really be an issue the ATA100 drive will be backward compatible. Also use the 80pin ATA cable that you are using now.

As regards max HDD size, I note that you are using XP and in its naitive form ie no SPs it should handle HDD size of up to 137Gb. The other area to look at is your bios and to find out what is the max LBA that it can address ie to run HDD >137Gb you will need the bios to be 48bit LBA. You will need to check out the bios and find out what it can handle.

Good Luck

 

Thank you very much for the information you all shared with me.
One question occurs to me now: how do I check for LBA in BIOS? Is that like restarting the computer, push delete at the right time and subsequently a screen with information appears? Is that the BIOS info with some entrance about LBA?

Hope to hear from you (some time).

 

You will have to find out what kind of mobo/bios you have and then either post in the mobo's forum or contact the manufacturer CS. Hopefully one of those avenues would be good. Your board does not support 48bit LBA for sure in my opinion so your HDD limit will be 137Gb. I am not too up on this subject but am aware of LBA limitations. Perhaps a more informed reader could provide greater detail.

The alternative as noahawk suggested, is to get an ATA add-in card which would have it's own bios. If you purchased this today you could run a HDD >137Gb without issues if you had the appropriate SP on XP

 

Well, thank you very much for your advice/explanation.
I think I know enough now to, at least, know what to ask for when buying the equipment.