[SOLVED] New-used pc and new hard drive

Jun 28, 2021
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Hey everyone. I just picked up a new to me pc that didn't have a hard drive. I know nothing about it other than it powered up and didn't have a hard drive.

I bought a new hard drive but when it's plugged in to the sata 0 or 1, I can't get past the identifying stage of the boot up and I can't get in to bios.

Unplugged from it, I can get to loading windows but no hard drive to load it. Also, I can get to the bios and change things.

I have pics of everything but it won't let me upload from my phone on to here with out hosting them elsewhere so I will try in a bit.

Mike
 
Solution
Older SATA 1 controllers only support HDDs smaller than 1TB, hence the problem.

Seeing it's an old Athlon 64, i presume it will be running something like Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
If that is the case, bear in mind neither of those two support partition sizes above 128GB. This is due to 48-bit large block adressing being disabled by default.

Once you have the right HDD plugged in, here's a list of volume size limitations based on OS.

Bazzy 505

Respectable
Jul 17, 2021
344
124
1,940
Older SATA 1 controllers only support HDDs smaller than 1TB, hence the problem.

Seeing it's an old Athlon 64, i presume it will be running something like Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
If that is the case, bear in mind neither of those two support partition sizes above 128GB. This is due to 48-bit large block adressing being disabled by default.

Once you have the right HDD plugged in, here's a list of volume size limitations based on OS.

 
Solution

Bazzy 505

Respectable
Jul 17, 2021
344
124
1,940