Installing a Hard Drive

[tmk]

Im in the planning stages of upgrading my hard drive.  I currently have a 6GB WD drive,OEM.  My MOBO is a Biostar M6TLC.  It has a Pent II 333Mhz CPU.  I recently upgraded my bios from Biostar's website,which described that the new bios was to support an ATA 66.  My question is in regard to the ATA.  Every drive I see advertised is for ATA 100.  I would assume these are backward compatable.  Can I still use this type of drive?  I definitely want to address any compatability issues before I buy.  I have already sent an e-mail to Biostar asking about the MOBO capabilities in regard to hard drives.  Any other suggestions?

[query]

Yes, ATA100 and 133 drives are backward compatible with any IDE controller.

If Biostar's model numbers hold that's a 440LX board, which is ATA33, not ATA66.  You might want to get a controller card with ATA66 or 100 support - it's also possible that the system may have trouble with a drive over 32 GBytes - a lot of older boards with AwardBIOS do.  The controller card will fix that.

[tmk]

Thanks Query,
I've heard of that.  Any ideas where I would find this or where to research how it works etc.  This is a learning experience as well.

[query]

All you need is a PCI card IDE controller - sometimes you can purchase a kit with one included with a hard drive.  If not, they are inexpensive ($30 or less) -- Promise (www.promise.com) is probably the best of them.

[tmk]

Query,
Thanks for putting me on the right path.