Compatibility of BIOS with New Hard Drive

[hsrini]

Hi,
I have a 5 year old Dell Dimension XPS R400 running Windows 98. I bought a Maxtor Ultra Series 160 GB hard drive with the intent of adding it as an additional hard drive. I plan to make this the primary drive and install Win XP on it. However, a friend of mine cautioned me that the BIOS setting on my old PC may not be compatible with the new hard drive.
How do I go about determining whether this hard drive will work with BIOS for XPS R400? Any web sites that may be of help? I would be reluctant to change the BIOS setting since I don't want to make a mistake and risk my PC. Does anyone have any experience/suggestions?
Thanks,
--Srini

 

[ski]

Install the new HD and see what happens.
If it's not recognized by your BIOS, then you either have to flash update the BIOS, or buy a new MB.

The Dell website's support section may be able to tell you if updating your BIOS is possible, and if so will doing this get it to recognize the new HD.

 

[Jontmke]

You should have gotten a floppy disk with the Hard drive. Maxtor has its own way of formatting the drive so that it will work with older BIOS's. You should not have to get any new equipment. Put that floppy in and boot off of it.
Usually works like a charm.

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)