How to determine what internal HD size a computer will support?

I think it's the OS/file system and BIOS that'll determine partition limit? May not necessarily coincide with actual size of drive

Get some external HD enclosures and plug in via USB

Doesn't the PC's chipset determine how big a drive it will support? Maybe that's somewhere to start.

Use GPT for formatting opposed to MBR if you're using drives >2TB (and ensure UEFI is selected in the BIOS if you want to boot from one). Since you're using W7 x64, for more storage I don't think there would be a limitation to the size of drive you want to add. The only problem I would see is trying to make a boot drive on that old of a chipset if the drive was >2TB.

BernardRyder wrote: ↑ Doesn't the PC's chipset determine how big a drive it will support? Maybe that's somewhere to start.

Old people call this PC chipset as MOTHERboard

Boot drive max would be 2TB. This is due to the BIOS not supporting GPT drives.

For non-boot, you can use any (current) capacity, as Windows 7 doesn't care if the HDD is properly recognized by the BIOS.

(same as what heyyahblah said above, but with less words )

So looks like no quick easy way. Just trial and error.

AV-Fishing wrote: ↑Get some external HD enclosures and plug in via USB

Don't work that way. Externals seem to be supported better than internals. I have some external housings that also appear to limit how big a drive they'll support.

BernardRyder wrote: ↑Doesn't the PC's chipset determine how big a drive it will support? Maybe that's somewhere to start.

That's what i thought. Had (still have) 2 C2D computers. One was limited by how big an internal data drive (non-booting) it would support and the other was limited (by chip set) how much RAM it would support. The AMD literature doesn't seem to indicate the limit (or I don't know how to read it).

heyyahblah wrote: ↑Use GPT for formatting opposed to MBR if you're using drives >2TB (and ensure UEFI is selected in the BIOS if you want to boot from one). Since you're using W7 x64, for more storage I don't think there would be a limitation to the size of drive you want to add. The only problem I would see is trying to make a boot drive on that old of a chipset if the drive was >2TB.

This thing is old enough not to have UEFI (only two or maybe 3 computers I have even have UEFI). I'll start, when I get a drive, and see what's recoqnized. Maybe shuck one of the out-of-warranty externals.

rabbit wrote: ↑ Boot drive max would be 2TB. This is due to the BIOS not supporting GPT drives.

For non-boot, you can use any (current) capacity, as Windows 7 doesn't care if the HDD is properly recognized by the BIOS.

Yeah, i guess it may be a BIOS problem. They've all got updated BIOS as far as I could get them (will never buy a HP again due to limited/non-existent support - they pulled all the old stuff off the 'net).

The 780G is the northbridge chipset. The SATA controller lies on the southbridge, which from a quick google is the SB700. Whatever the SB700 supports (with proper drivers) is what you'll be stuck with.

I ran into the issue with my older Core 2 machines using either intel ICH7 or ICH8 chipsets, but my recently deceased Core 2 Quad mobo had ICH10 and supported 4TB drives no problem. I also ran into issues with an external enclosure from around the same period (2009?) where it appeared fine, but when I ran CHKDSK the drive returned a ton of bad sectors, but tested fine when connected to the motherboard.

Your conundrum reminds me of the fun times with my last AMD-based build and what a hassle it was finding documentation, drivers, and bios updates (non-existent!). I recall those were VIA chipsets back then, the ATI radeon drivers were another shitshow. That turned me off AMD for me TBH.

BIOS in 2008 computer motherboard supports all modern HD, such as 16 TB HD. The only limit is the Windows 7 NTFS boot partition limited to 2TB, but not data drive.

It won't benefit from the SATA3 (SATA600) speed, but all SATA3 drive is backward compatible with older SATA.