Big (> 137GB) Drive Support

07 Nov 2002 00:02:53 -0700

The BIOS just hung as long as the drive was turned on. Once I set the
BIOS to no drive in the slow the machine booted. 

As to the age of the machine it's not too old, it's an ATX MB dual proc
PII 400 MHz. I bought it new when the PII 400's were release. (Paid
through the nose as I recall.) AMI BIOS if I recall, I've not rebooted
the system in a while so I don't remember the exact age or BIOS
revision. I'd guess around 1998 but I  really don't remember. Also it
can not handle a 512M stick of RAM either.

On Wed, 2002-11-06 at 21:06, Darrell Shandrow wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> Just for purposes of reference, how old was this computer that would flat
> refuse to boot the 120 GB hard drive?  Do you know any particular reason why
> this happened?  Which BIOS did it run?  I have a late-1997 to early-1998
> ventage machine on which I will be installing RH 8.0 soon, and I'd like to
> have an idea what I'll be able to get away with; again, nothing fancy like
> dual-booting...
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Mandala" <davidm@them.com>
> To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 8:14 PM
> Subject: Re: Big (> 137GB) Drive Support
> 
> 
> > You thoughts are for the most part correct. However, it is possible for
> > some machine to refuse to boot on big hard drives, in that case even a
> > small partition will not work.
> >
> > For example when I hacked my TIVO's I put a 120G HD in my old computer
> > to prep it for the TIVO, the machine would not boot until I turned off
> > that HD in the bios completely! Since Linux does not use the PC's BIOS
> > for anything past the initial boot once I was in Linux all was fine,
> > Linux saw the HD and I was able to prep it. But I would not have been
> > able to ever boot from in in my PC.
> >
> > The Linux BIOS project is quite nice, if you are using a mother board
> > that they support you can get a sub 5 second boot time into Linux vs the
> > up to 1 minute boot time of some PC's.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Davidm
> >
> > On Wed, 2002-11-06 at 20:02, Darrell Shandrow wrote:
> > > Hi Fritz,
> > >
> > > Drive geometry and how it relates to a system's BIOS is still something
> > > which I have a bit of difficulty getting my mind around.  I know that a
> > > motherboard with an obsolete BIOS will not work with modern very large
> hard
> > > drives, and that various limits in cylinders, heads and sectors values
> in
> > > BIOS have resulted in size limitations, such as the 8.4 GB limit.
> > >
> > > But, I think some of this can be gotten around through the operating
> system.
> > > For example, I installed a 20 GB hard drive into a 1997 ventage system,
> > > performed auto-detection on the BIOS, then successfully installed RedHat
> > > Linux 7.2 onto that drive.  I thought I'd run into some sort of
> BIOS/drive
> > > size limit, and have to make multiple partitions, but that turned out to
> be
> > > unnecessary.  I was able to have a small boot partition at the beginning
> of
> > > the drive, followed by the large partition (somewhere around 18 or 19
> GB)
> > > and a swap partition, with no trouble at all!  Note that this is a
> > > single-boot system; only Linux has been installed.  There's nothing
> fancy
> > > happening like dual-booting.
> > >
> > > From the research I have done, here's what I think is happening.  The
> BIOS
> > > is auto-detecting the drive, and coming up with CHS for a smaller drive
> size
> > > than the 20 GB limit, even after doing some sort of LBA translation.
> > > Unfortunately, since I can't see the BIOS screen (that happens long
> before
> > > the OS loads, and thus no screen reader is running) I can't tell you the
> CHS
> > > figures the BIOS is generating.  The system then proceeds to boot from
> the
> > > hard disk's boot sector at the beginning of the disk.  Since that points
> to
> > > Linux, the Linux kernel loads.  The Kernel is in the boot partition,
> which
> > > is also the first partition on the drive, so this fits well within
> whatever
> > > the BIOS drive size limit would be.  At that point, the Linux kernel
> takes
> > > over disk access functions, and is smart enough to work around the size
> > > limitations.  Am I in the right ballpark on this?  Additional
> information
> > > would be great.
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Fritz" <fkolberg@qwest.net>
> > > To: "PLUG-Discuss" <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 10:22 AM
> > > Subject: Big (> 137GB) Drive Support
> > >
> > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > >                 Does anyone know the status of the support for the new
> > > >                 big (greater than 137GB) IDE drives that are starting
> > > >                 to appear?  I would imagine there are prerequisites
> > > >                 such as a fairly new mobo, BIOS updates, etc.
> > > >
> > > >                 Do most of these drives (e.g. Western-Digital, Maxtor)
> > > >                 include a controller card in their "boxed retail"
> > > >                 versions (or do they rely on the mobo IDE controller)?
> > > >
> > > >                 Reply to list ... TIA.
> > > >
> > > >                 Fritz
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
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> > --
> > David IS Mandala
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> > Phoenix, AZ (480) 460-7546 HP, (602) 321-8277 CP
> > http://www.them.com/~davidm/
> >
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David IS Mandala
gpg fingerprint 8932 E7EF CCF5 1B8C 1B5C  A92E C678 795E 45B2 D952
Phoenix, AZ (480) 460-7546 HP, (602) 321-8277 CP
http://www.them.com/~davidm/