The ASUS A78NX was introduced in the early 2000s, and as a result of its age, is limited in its compatibility with modern components. The motherboard supports integrated drive electronics hard drives, but the largest IDE drives available for consumers are 750 gigabyte in size. Hard-disk drives larger than 750GB use the serial advanced technology attachment --SATA -- interface, which the ASUS A7N8X does not support. Several conditions are required to use a 2 terabyte disk on the motherboard.
Background
SATA supersedes IDE. The SATA interface was released in 2001 -- 15 years after IDE was designed -- but the technology to add SATA support to motherboards was not created until April 2003. The Intel ICH5 was the first motherboard chipset to recognize SATA. Motherboards developed before the release of the Intel ICH5 -- or low-end motherboards that did not catch up to the latest hard-drive technology until a few years after the release of SATA -- lack a SATA socket. The ASUS A7N8X is an example of the former. The motherboard features two IDE sockets, but not a single SATA socket.
Compatibility
Adding SATA support to an ASUS A7N8X requires the installation of a SATA controller card. These cards install to a peripheral component interconnect slot on the motherboard and add two SATA ports to the computer. The A7N8X includes five available PCI slots to which a SATA RAID controller card can be installed. Once the card is inserted into the appropriate slot, you can connect up to two SATA devices to the component. Note that you must install the card software to the computer before installing the card itself.
Problems
Even after installing the SATA devices to the SATA card on the A7N8X, problems can still occur. SATA hard drives come in three different revisions: SATA 1.5 gigabits per second, SATA 3.0Gbps and SATA 6.0Gbps. All SATA controller cards support SATA 1.5Gbps, but some products don't support faster revisions. On some SATA hard drives are jumpers you can set to change the SATA speed from 3.0Gbps or 6.0Gbps to 1.5Gbps. Jumper settings vary from drive to drive, so check the manual to see correctly configure the jumpers on your hard drive.
Operating System
If you've installed the 2TB disk to a SATA/150 card on your A7N8X motherboard, you may still have difficulty using the hard disk drive. Older operating systems, like Windows XP and Windows 2000, don't feature built-in SATA support -- so the OSes won't install to a SATA device unless setup is configured correctly. To install an OS to your 2TB disk, download the appropriate drivers for the SATA controller card from the manufacturer's website. Transfer the drivers to a floppy disk. Boot the install CD, then press F6 when prompted to load the SATA drivers into the OS setup.
Tags: controller card, hard drives, SATA controller, SATA support, 0Gbps SATA, ASUS A7N8X