60gb hd -will it work in my old computer?

[bdog]

I am thinking about buying a 60 gb maxtor hd for an old compaq deskpro 200mhz ppro. I was wondering if the bios on this old thing will recognize this big of an hd, or will I need to put in a controller card an Ultra 66?

[jit333]

Why would you want a drive that big? Is it a web server or what?

[Mr.Goodbytes]

I am thinking no. Compaq undoubtedly has a bios update, but there's a problem. You probably have a bios that's only software accessible. Meaning: if you ever formatted your drive to get rid of the **** compaq put on there, you can't access bios, and you can't update it either, since the software has to be on a special diagnostics partition at the beginning of the drive.

If this is not the case and they have a good bios update, you'll be fine. Otherwise, you're in the weeds.

You might be able to get around it with Partition Magic though, I've done that before with some compaqs.

[bdog]

Thanks for the advise. This is going to be a Linux box that runs cron jobs to back up all the data on three Sparcs. I hate to waste a newer computer on just a backup machine.

I have been checking compaqs website and can't find anything usefull. Figures. Anyway, I looked in the Compaq and it only has two pci slots. One is used by the nic and the other by the video card so I couldn't put a controller card in even if I wanted to. Maybe I will look into another machine for this backup box.