replies inline.......
At 20:37 12/24/2007 -0800, Tharin O. wrote:
Some of those drives had a jumper to force the 504mb drive geometry for
compatibility. I imagine you would have spotted this though because it is
normally on the drive label.
Yes, the two 'lower' members of this drive's family to have this feature.
However, per the spec manual the dpea-31080 has this 504mb geometry feature
disabled. Says that jumper position 7 (pins 13-14) is ignored. Hmm. I
wonder........ :)
Is it actually sharing the ide cable with another drive or is it by
itself? Sometimes the older drives had to be jumpered for "Single" instead
of Master.
Just now the hd is on the Master connector (set for CableSelect) and the
CDROM is on the Slave connector (set for CableSelect). The next test will
be to remove the 'CableSelect' option and promote each device to its' own
position. Suspect I might have been testing whether CS works or
not. Perhaps not with this bios.......... :)
Obviously a 440BX chipset board should handle a 1gb drive. I think that
one was new enough to go up to the 32gb barrier or possibly the 137gb barrier.
Seems logical, but back in 1998 when this m/b was new, IIRC, a 40GB had was
a really big deal. And a 137GB hd was just a dream! My how time flys. And
technology marches on.
If you enter CMOS utility and use the Auto Detect IDE option does it
display the values it is detecting for the sector, head, cylinder, disk
type, etc. ?? Is it LBA, CHS, or LARGE mode?
Now this gets to most for my present confusion. For S&G's I did use the
Auto Detect IDE option. What I received for the hd was/is a bit queer. I
get the small read window with:
Select Primary Master Option (N=Skip) : []
Options Size Cyls Head PreComp LandZ Sector Mode
2(Y) 1083 525 64 0 2099 63 LBA
1 1083 2100 16 65535 2099 63 NORMAL
3 1083 525 64 65535 2099 63 LARGE
Obviously, I choose the one that matches the hd's spec'd geometry. That
would be (1). Confused by why choice #2 has (Y) appended. Also notice the
even though this detect routine seems to acknowledge the CDROM, when I go
back to the base cmos screen, the primary slave line indicates that there
is nothing present. Not quite Bios-Hell, but close.
What happens if you force LBA, CHS, or LARGE and leave the geometry
details set to Auto?
This I will try in a bit. Except I think that if I leave the details set to
Auto, I can not force any of the values. From what I see, if I choose Auto,
bios rules.
Go into FDISK and look under NON-DOS Partitions (#4 i think)?, anything
there? Try using "FDISK /MBR" at the command prompt of your DOS boot disk
to rewrite the master boot record.
Yes, this I will try also. Though, in all these years I have never been
able to get this command to work. Will try again.
It doesn't really matter I suppose, but I'm having trouble understanding
why are you dealing with DOS and trying to get a "pretty" ESCD table in
the first place?
Perhaps just my own stupid pig-headedness. I grew up in computers learning
that it was best if devices in the ESCD table had their own IRQs to use.
And, way back then, some devices liked some IRQs better than others. Now,
I suppose this is just so much folklore and habitual ritual. Nothing more.
I thought you were gonna run FreeBSD or Linux??
Yes, that is what I will do eventually. The first install try got goofed
up by me. It started booting with more that a few command line screens that
indicated something went badly wrong. I am starting over. And, part of it
is finding the hd dorked up partition-wise, install-wise, pebcak-wise..... :)
When all else fails, I retreat to the last known OS I could sorta
drive. That be MS-DOS.
I'm drawing upon neurons that were formed during late grade school and jr.
high. Not quite sure if that makes me feel young or old. ;)
We are as young and old as we feel. Put the neurons to nap mode. I mean you
no harm with this. Have another EggNog! Merry Christmas! This is goof-off
project for me. If it does not work, well, my test of FreeNAS just ends and
I'll find something else. Or, maybe just buy some newer
hardware............ :)
Best,
Duncan
-Tharin Olsen
DHSinclair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
MS-DOS does not seen the hd any differently. Still 504MB. Have not tested
the CDROM on the same cable yet. Still Playing..............
I just think that DOS does not care for a 1083MB hard drive from IBM! I
could be real wrong here too!
