adding external hard drive

I was going to order a 250 gig external HD to my older pc ( 1 gig athlon, win ME) but I know that there is an issue in using a HD that big. Is there a way to make full use of this without added expense or should I just go with a smaller one? The tiger direct deal ends today, so I'm sort of pressed for time. I did a search, but I'm pressed for time so any info of what I'm getting into would be appreciated.

 

this one

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...C3T-1012&CMP=EMC-TIGEREMAIL&SRCCODE=WEM1126AI

 

Your max is about 137 GB without a disk manager program. Most hard drive manufacturers provide disk manager programs, free of charge, on their web sites.

 

thanks for the reply, what does a disk manager program do? Does it just create partitions? If so how big would these partitions be, 137gig?

 

The disk manager's primary job is to provide a block translation table for your BIOS. They usually call it Dynamic Drive Overlay(DDO). But, recently, they have also provided a 48-bit LBA compliant driver, to replace the older 28-bit LBA driver we've all been living with. This driver may come bundled with your new hard drive on a floppy disk, or you can download from the OEMs web page. And yes, some of these Drive Manager programs provide for "low level format", "OS-level format" as well as partitioning and drive-letter reassignments.

 

For anyone wishing to use large drives with Windows98 or WindowsMe, the website 48bitlba.com seems to provide some very useful tips. Check it out.
http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm