2TB compatible with ECS nForce3-A Socket 754 motherboard?

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IsaacKuo
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Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:50 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

2TB compatible with ECS nForce3-A Socket 754 motherboard?

Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:26 am

My file server uses an old Socket 754 motherboard: ECS nForce3-A

I'd like to buy a 1.5TB or 2TB hard drive, but how can I tell if it's compatible? I had previously bought two 1TB hard drives:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB - NOT COMPATIBLE
and
HITACHI 0A38016 1TB - compatible

With the Seagate drive installed, the motherboard would not POST. With the Hitachi drive installed, there were no issues.

I'd like to buy this hard drive:

HITACHI Deskstar HD32000 IDK/7K 2TB

But how can I tell if it will be compatible?

Thanks!

Jay_S
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Post by Jay_S » Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:46 am

How was the drive incompatible? Looks like the ECS nForce3-A (and the NVIDIA nForce3 in general) has the older SATA1.5 ports - you may have to jumper newer SATA drives for SATA1.5 compatibility. Oddly, many Seagates I've owned have come with this jumper preinstalled.

IsaacKuo
Posts: 1705
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:50 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:55 am

I don't know. All I know is that it wouldn't POST with the Seagate hard drive installed--it would get as far as trying to detect the Seagate hard drive and it would hang at that step.

I had no idea to even look for a SATA1.5 jumper setting. My knowledge in this area is very crude.

Jay_S
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Post by Jay_S » Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:59 am

The jumper might not solve your problem, but you can read more on it in Seagate's datasheet for the 7200.12 (PDF) drives - see page 22.

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