LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: 9405581j <hawjd001@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au>
  To  : Sam Silvester <silvest@capri.net.au>
  Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 11:48:23 +1030 (GMT+10:30)

Re: Big disk drive + small PC + linux

i have an old 486 computer with an old BIOS. well i had one. dunno whrere
it is now.... Anyhow...


I put a 2gig drive in it, and the BIOS didn't work. I played around with
LILO and got it working eventually. In the meantime however, I used a
floppy to boot from.




> 
> 
> 
> Toby Corkindale wrote:
> 
> > Hmmm
> > Maybe someone should tell all this to one of my PCs at home.
> > I've got a 10.4 Gb drive in it, which is in LBA mode because I've got a
> > windows partition on it as well.
> > Contrary to what someone said earlier, the IDE drive does NOT do the LBA
> > mapping/unmapping - this is purely a BIOS thing.
> > Now, this 10gb drive definately has way more than 64 heads reported in
> > BIOS, under LBA. (Yes, I know they're not 'real' heads, but the point is
> > that there's more than 64 (2^6), which Mark is saying is the limit.) It
> > also has more than 1023 cylinders as well.
> > I've seen old BIOS's loop back large harddrives such that they report
> > them as incorrect sizes, but mine works fine. I don't believe that the
> > BIOS itself imposes a limit on the cylinder/head amounts. This drive has
> > more than 1023 cylinders, and more than 64 heads, and works fine in LBA
> > mode.
> >
> 
> I think that you will find that if the BIOS is old (as it might be on a 486)
> it is possible that it will not support LBA or be unable to address the large
> HDD. On newer 486s the BIOS is often able to handle large drives, if not, the
> drive will sometimes come with a DOS or Windows TSR that will intercept calls
> to the BIOS and therefore enable access to large drives.Sam Silvester.
> 
> --
> Programming is an art form that fights back.
> Sam Silvester - silvest@capri.net.au
> 
> 
> -- 
> Check out the LinuxSA web pages at http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
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> 
> 



MrJ					Computer Systems Engineering
hawjd001@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au	Unisa, Levels Campus 


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