Mobo bios and hard drive

[almightyfish]

Im pretty unexperienced with assmebly the inards of a computer so i decided id go over to the geek squad and have them isntall my Sata western digital 160 gb hard drive on my dimension 8400. little did i know after 30 minuets and my pizza turning cold at the pizzaria that my mobo cant handel a hard drive that is more then 150 gigs. anyone know of anything i can do (updateing bios or what not) to fix this issue.

Also, is there any issue with a slave drive being larger then its master?

thanks for your time

[Raddy]

Older motherboards had what was called 28-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing), which had a limit of ~150GB (decimal). The new addressing scheme, 48-bit LBA is what is most modern computers, and has a limit of 144PB or something like that. I don't know if updating your BIOS will fix it (I don't think it will), but you can contact Dell to see if there's anything you can do.

What year did you purchase this computer?

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Follow this link to get the newest BIOS update for your Dimension 8400.

These are the updates that have been included in this latest version:

A09

1. Add new Service Tag editing feature.
   
2. Add support for newer processors.
   
3. Correct USB detach performance.
   
4. Improve PCIE functionality.
   

A08

1. Add support for newer processors
   
2. Add help text during password change
   
3. Improve boot sequence for CD ROMs
   
4. Removed dialog pop-ups from flash program when -NoPause is used
   
5. Improve S3 resume timing
   

A07

1. Prevent boot issues when USB devices with media readers are present.
   

A06

1. Fix hang condition during POST with fibre channel adapters.
   
2. Improve processor reporting in BIOS SETUP.
   
3. Improve support for 64-bit operating systems.
   
4. Updated SMBIOS structures for 2.3.4 compliance.
   
5. Add support for newer processors.
   
6. Fix video initialization search routine.
   
7. Prevent false NMI error for some add in cards.
   
8. Improve memory information reporting.
   
9. Fix various USB problems.
   
10. Fix keystroke for password entry in setup.
    

A05

1. Fixed a problem with drive spin-up detection
   
2. Fixed a problem with NX support enabling in setup
   

A04

1. Updated newer CPUs detection and micro code
   
2. Improved network wake control functionality
   
3. Improved SMBIOS CPU speed reporting
   
4. Fixed a problem with USB remote controls
   
5. Improved USB hub support
   
6. Improved PCI space allocation
   
7. Fixed a problem with old, small hard drives
   
8. Made the BIOS update program more robust
   
9. Allow USB keys to boot on systems with no video
   
10. Improved ATAPI device detection
    

A03

1. Added advisory text when changing the hard drive controller mode
   
2. Fixed problem with long S3 resume times with older OSes
   
3. Improved boot list management
   
4. Updated newer CPUs detection and micro code
   
5. Corrected minor problem with slot reporting in SMBIOS
   
6. Fixed a problem with password entry on some international keyboards
   
7. Modified floppy error reporting to lessen confusion
   
8. Improved USB interoperability
   
9. Improved fan diagnostics interface
   

A02

1. Updated newer CPUs detection and micro code
   
2. Updated PCI-E X1 and X16 initialization
   
3. Updated memory initialization
   
4. Added processor "no execute/execute deny" support
   
5. Updated PCI memory configuration
   
6. Added aditional vendor firmware hub support
   
7. Updated password support from keypad during windows flash
   
8. Updated onboard NIC low power mode support
   
9. Updated hot key processing during POST
   
10. Fixed possible hang after unplugging and re-plugging USB hubs.
    
11. Updated S3 suspend/resume support
    
12. Updated SMBios table reporting for video, PCI, and PCI-E
    
13. Updated diskette media detection after attempting CD boot.
    

A01

1. Improved the PCI-Express graphics card detection/initialization routine.
   

[almightyfish]

early 2005 is when i purchased the computer

[Raddy]

Then it should definitely have 48-bit support...update your BIOS and give Dell a call to see if there's something else that might be wrong.