bert
[Entry]
"I still own a 440BX-based MB, and I remember last updating its BIOS in 2003, to make it ""see"" 137GB HDDs. Before that update the limit was either 40 or 80 GB. I believe it has Award BIOS v. 4.51 or something like that.
Also, do not forget that your OS will see the HDD in full capacity. BIOS limitation should only affect ability to boot from an ""oversized"" partition, so if you make a /boot partition bootable (under Linux) or your bootalbe c:\ drive less than e.g. 80 GB, you shouldn't have problems with 1.5TB HDDs. Unless your BIOS hangs trying to detect the HDD, that is. If it does hang, than this quote from http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/Maximum-Hard-Drive-Size-older-Motherboard--ftopict485311.html could help:
I had similar problems, but longer ago, with old Pentium
machines. I think the MB limitation was 8GB, but my disk
was much bigger. The MB, whenever tried to find the disk,
hanged. So I figured out the geometry of the disk (good
chance it is written on it), and simply reduced the cylinder
count, so the apparent disk size became less than 8GB. I
entered this info into the BIOS by hand. The BIOS was now
happy, and it booted the computer. I placed (IIRC) a small
partition at the beginning, /boot/, and then the rest was
everything else. Linux will recognize your disk.
Important, keep the head/sector count. Change (reduce) only
the cylinder count.
Anyway, you may add a PCI PATA/SATA adaptor, which will definitely lift the size limit."
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