Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 7 Feb 2000 15:12:25 +0000 (GMT) | From | Riley Williams <> | Subject | Re: Detecting BIG ( 17.2 GB ) hard drives under Linux |
| |
Hi Khimenko.
>> Now, the problem is that the new BIOS recognized the new hard >> drive as a 17.2 GB, but Linux recognizes it only as an 8 GB hard >> drive.
> It's still BIOS problem though :-/ I've seen this.
>> NT recognizes it only as a 2 GB hard drive, but that I believe >> is OK 'cause the documentation of the hard drive indicates that >> in order to get it recognized, I'll need to update NT to at >> least Service Pack 4. I don't use NT as much as to need to get >> the new service pack, so I'll devoid the new hard drive >> completely to Linux.
>> So, my question is: how to I get Linux to recognize the full >> size of the hard drive ?
> You should create partition table there to span the entire disk. > If BIOS is broken then you can sometimes do it with Windows9X's > FDISK and/or Partition Magic. When you have correct partition > table Linux will be able to use full capacity of disk without > any troubles even if you have broken BIOS.
If you're using LILO as your boot loader, I believe you can put a line in /etc/lilo.conf to sort this out - something like the following to define /dev/hdb as having 19876 cylinders, 64 heads and 63 sectors:
disk = hdb,19876,64,63
I'm not sure if the syntax is right as I don't have the relevant documentation to hand, but it's something along those lines.
>> RH 6.1 comes with a program ( kudzu ) that supposedly is used to >> recognized new devices, but it fails miserably ( segmentation >> fault ) with this hard drive. Admittedly, I'm using the kudzu >> that comes originally with RH 6.1 ( haven't checked if there's >> an update ).
> Never seen this program :-)
It's a good program, but still in the early stages of development. You may wish to report this problem to RedHat's Bugzilla for comment...
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/
> It's common problem: you BIOS is "good enough" for Windows9X but > not "good enough" for Linux :-(( Since Linux will not use BIOS > when there are exist correct parttion table on disk you can just > plug disk in some "normal" system and partition it.
That requires that you have a "normal" system handy to plug it into. However, I believe that the Norton Utilities pack includes a program that can produce a partition table to match the disk.
> (BTW why I've seen LOTS of such problems with IBM, Dell and > other brands but NEVER see such problems with > make-it-yourself-from-cheneese-components systems? Hmm. All such > system use Award BIOS typically while brands are using it's own > BIOS... Hmm).
As far as I can tell, most DIY systems have either Award or AMI BIOS chips, whereas IBM use own brand, and Dell appear to use Phoenix BIOS.
Best wishes from Riley.
* Copyright (C) 1999, Memory Alpha Systems. * All rights and wrongs reserved.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | There is something frustrating about the quality and speed of Linux | | development, ie., the quality is too high and the speed is too high, | | in other words, I can implement this XXXX feature, but I bet someone | | else has already done so and is just about to release their patch. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ * http://www.memalpha.cx/Linux/Kernel/
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |