HDD settings

[scottluebke2003]

When installing a new HDD, are there settings that need to be set or tweaked? How about drivers? Do you need to install drivers to ensure proper performance and operation?

I installed a Seagate 120GB 7200 rpm 8Meg cache, and I dont see much of a a difference. I replaced a 4 year old West Dig 20GB, 5400.

[rmanet]

no drivers - if it's a newer mobo it should autodetect and setup the drive in bios with the fastest options when you installed it - and make sure DMA is checked in device or hardware manager

give us your bios settings for the drive, make sure windows is using DMA, and honestly, depending on what you're doing, you won't notice much of a difference with usual apps, but should see a difference in gaming, file transfers, etc.

Plenty of freeware, shareware programs that'll benchmark the drive for you - SiSoft Sandra, AIDA32

[BipolarBill]

You need to be using a modern motherboard which supports UDMA66 or better and a proper 80-wire Ultra ATA cable to get full performance from the drive. If your motherboard doesn't support the drive, you can always add a Promise or Highpoint UDMA IDE controller card.

[scottluebke2003]

My mobo is a Gigabyte KT400 board, its fairly new. I didnt know about DMA, what exactly does it do? My IDE cables support up to ATA133. They are the newer style round cables.

What settings exactly are you asking for? From the BIOS, I mean.

[scottluebke2003]

where exactly is the DMA option?

[leprechaun_40]

DMA will be found in the device manager. Go to the properties of the drive and then to the settings tab, check the box marked DMA , OK, and then reboot. :t

[BipolarBill]

Depends on the Windows version. It's in the IDE controllers section in Win2K/XP.