how large a hard drive can my motherboard support?

[a a]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for asking this question.

I have a Gateway DX4200-09 with a 640 GB hard drive and I have been thinking about replacing it with a 2 TB hard drive.

How do I find out if my motherboard will be able to support a drive that size?

[data-medics]

You'll be fine up to 2Tb, but if the drive is an "Advanced Format" one with 4K sectors it might give issues. Most vendors released a BIOS update to support it, but sometimes prebuilt machines like Gateway get left in the dust. Check for BIOS update, or just be sure it isn't "Advanced Format".

[a a]

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure Gateway never released a BIOS update for this unit. Would a drive customarily say 'Advanced Format' in the specs? I'm looking at this one,

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-Cache-720 ... 1253505011

[fzabkar]

You'll be fine up to 2Tb, but if the drive is an "Advanced Format" one with 4K sectors it might give issues. Most vendors released a BIOS update to support it, but sometimes prebuilt machines like Gateway get left in the dust. Check for BIOS update, or just be sure it isn't "Advanced Format".

I'm not aware of any issues with AF drives in any motherboard, old or new, as long as the drive supports 512e emulation, and that would cover every drive except perhaps a few 4Kn enterprise models. I don't know how BIOS would handle the latter.