How can I tell what size hard drive my computer can use?

question 1 - yes, you can. You will likely need to slave one to the other though unless you arent using the second ATA port for cd-rom/dvd (unlikely).

question 2- size in and of itself (in terms of amount of storage) is not the limiting factor. Your motherboards bus type for your IDE devices is what determines what you can and can't use. I think your particular model of mobo supports ata of 66/100/133 (according to the specs here: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Pr...

which means that ANY harddrive you get that function on one of those 3 speeds on ATA will work.

For example, if you look here : http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/c... you will find that the harddrives specify what their interface is, look for the phrasing "ATA/100" or "ATA/133" - those should be compatible with your motherboard.

Adding another 7200rpm drive shouldnt be enough to warrant another fan (though it certainly never hurts), but you can watch your temp in your bios after the install, if you are uncomfortable with the levels its reaching (you can probably google to determine safe levels for you mobo/proc etc) then just add another one

good luck.

EDIT: I made an OS assumption of xp sp2, Kevin above me is correct in his statements on what the OSs will support, if you are not in windows xp sp2 then other things come into play.

What operating system are you using ? If XP your good to go after SP2 I believe. Both of those are consider large harddrives, and support for that size is added in XP SP2 or WIndows 2000 SP4 i believe.

Yes you can install both at once you can make one the master and one the slave, they will appear as two seperate drives in My Computer. You would not need another fan harddrives run relatively cool there probably isn't even a fan on your current harddrive.

It looks like you can only use IDE so make sure you get an IDE harddrive over a SATA

Inn most cases the max size of a hard drive depends solelyon your operating system. For example windows xp can handle hard drives of a max size each 2 TB

Depends, i'd offer my services (computer repair) but you are most likely not in PA. I would first see if your MoBo has Serial ATA connections; if it does, buy that over IDE... you can run 2 hard drives either way.

unless you have an extreamly small case you will not need a second fan.

all good answers:

never had a problem adding harddrive as the harddrives report to the bios what they are and it recognises them normally without adding a driver

your computer will support up to four(40 pin=ide) devises=cd, dvd, harddrive, without adding a raid card

sisandra free download could tell you what your computer motherboard can support also the mfg