Question : Problem: Will this PC support a 400 GB IDE drive

Seagate site says ".... Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 with
48-bit LBA Address drivers are required for native support of ATA (IDE) disc drives greater than 137GB."

Please respond to all three questions below.

(1) I assume this does not apply to just Seagate but to alll 400 GB ATA(IDE) drives? Right or wrong?

(2) PC has Win 2K SP4 so the above FIRST requirement is met. Also an existing 160 GB HD shows up My Computer and I can see subfolders and files in subfolders on this HD. So that proves that it must have the 2nd Seagate-stated requirement above: the driver is a 48-bit LBA address driver.
IS THIS STATEMENT 100% ACCURATE with no possibility of error. Is my reasoning here airtight?
Note: I have gone into HD properties/drivers and it does not state anything about 48-bit LBA so don't look there. If you have an independent way to find out, please state it here.  

Also the BIOS says this HD has a LBA address space of about 156,000 MB.

(3) So that leaves the mobo; we know it supports 160 GB but not 400 GB. I contend that is WRONG reasoning. I contend it is the IDE (ATA) standard and any mobo that supports IDE will support 400 GB if the requirments in the Seagate statement are also met. Or am I wrong, must I check the mobo specs to see if **IT ALSO** supports 400 GB HD as a final test. YES OR NO.

Regards-Mike

Answer : Problem: Will this PC support a 400 GB IDE drive

(1) I assume this does not apply to just Seagate but to alll 400 GB ATA(IDE) drives? Right or wrong?

==> Right.   The initial large block addressing (LBA) specification used 28-bits for the address.   This limited the address space to 137GB (2^28 sectors * 512 bytes/sector).   When drives began to exceed this value, the LBA specification was extended to use 48 bits for the address;  so the important thing is you need to have a 48-bit LBA capable system.   This has absolutely nothing to do with who makes the drives.

(2) PC has Win 2K SP4 so the above FIRST requirement is met. Also an existing 160 GB HD shows up My Computer and I can see subfolders and files in subfolders on this HD. So that proves that it must have the 2nd Seagate-stated requirement above: the driver is a 48-bit LBA address driver.
IS THIS STATEMENT 100% ACCURATE with no possibility of error. Is my reasoning here airtight?
Note: I have gone into HD properties/drivers and it does not state anything about 48-bit LBA so don't look there. If you have an independent way to find out, please state it here.  

==>  If a 160GB drive is correctly reported in the BIOS (which it is) there is NO DOUBT that your IDE channels support 48-bit LBA.   Your reasoning is 100% correct and there is no error.

(3) So that leaves the mobo; we know it supports 160 GB but not 400 GB. I contend that is WRONG reasoning. I contend it is the IDE (ATA) standard and any mobo that supports IDE will support 400 GB if the requirments in the Seagate statement are also met. Or am I wrong, must I check the mobo specs to see if **IT ALSO** supports 400 GB HD as a final test. YES OR NO.

==>  If the motherboard supports 160GB (it does) then it supports 400GB.  PERIOD!!  It is NOT true that any motherboard that supports IDE will support 48-bit LBA -- that's a function of the controller;  but YOUR motherboard clearly has 48-bit LBA support on its IDE channels, so you can safely install a 400GB drive.

Also, there are no "tricks" you need to do with Windows 2K as long as you have the correct service packs installed (which you do).   The only "trick" is if you're trying to install Windows 2K with NO service packs on a larger-than-137GB drive before you install the service packs.   I WOULD suggest that after you install the large drive you IMAGE your system (in a pristine state) so that if anything catastrophic ever happens you can simply restore the image (which has the service packs) instead of having to deal with the problem of installing an OS that won't recognize your drive's partitions.