Ultra ATA/100 HDD on a Ultra ATA/33 motherboard

My Maxtor Fireball Harddisk has ultra ATA/100 data transfer, my Pcchips
motherboard only supports ATA/33, coz the BIOS is too old. This means I
cannot check the DMA mode for my drive in control panel, unless I flash the
BIOS (at least, so I found out on the various support pages). Also it looks
like I have only 18 GB of 20 GB available.
Question 1; would there be a significant difference in drive speed if I
would flash the bios (rather not) and use DMA for the drive?
Question 2; could installing a PCI ATA controller fix both problems or only
correct the loss of 2GB disk-space?
Any advice is appreciated.

 

DMA significantly increses data transfer speed.

Installing a controller card would fix the DMA problem and give you the
fastest transfer speeds (get an Ultra ATA 100 or 133 card). Your
"missing" space is not missing. This is due to a difference in what
disk drive manufacturers consider a MB to be and what it is in practice.
For example, my 120 GB drive is 111 GB in actual use.

 

Thanx for your reply! I would have flashed the Bios if I was sure I had the
right update, but these Pcchips mb's are too dark for me lol, and I filled
in a support form on their website months ago and never got any answer.I'll
go get me an ATA controller card. Much obliged ICee =]

 

That's the best way to go, especially with that particular MB. Good
luck, and you're welcome!