Re: [expert] Big Disks, Old Mobos and Autotranslation???
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Felix Miata wrote: "Any modern Linux will see 850MB, 15GB, & 80GB drives as long as the cabling and jumpers are correct." Later, Rob Blomquist wrote: "The 850 is the bootable disk containing the OS, the other 2 drives are mounted to that disk, so the 80 Gb would not have to be booted." After which, alan wrote: "But it may not be able to boot it if it is the drive with /boot on it and /boot is past where the motherboard can see." Apparently alan missed the begining of the thread, where in response to Rob Blomquist's original question: Felix Miata wrote: "All that BIOS translation gibberish is irrelevant if you DO NOT need to boot from the device. If this is the case, simply set the BIOS to NONE for the device. Then Linux will pick it up correctly, unassisted by any deficiencies that may be present in the BIOS." Now what all the above means is the demarcation line beyond which booting is not possible is irrelevant to any drive set to NONE in the BIOS. The OP is booting from an 850MB drive, not the drives the BIOS doesn't understand. Since the boot loader IS where the BIOS can find it (the box is running RH 7.1, though it doesn't see the whole 80GB), the BIOS does initiate startup from the visible /boot (on the 850MB), after which Linux takes over (any demarcation line is irrelevant). > I solved the problem by buying a Promise IDE-133 controller. It has its > own bios for the drives. A good way to bypass flaky ide controllers. Can be if you have an available PCI slot, which is often not the case with old motherboards. The FIC 503+ the original poster is using has only 3 PCI slots to start with. > They are about $50 or so from Office Despot. They are near the hard > drive. I seem to remember them in a Western Digital box. Considerably less elsewhere for a generic. -- "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" Proverbs 9:10 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] Big Disks, Old Mobos and Autotranslation???
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Felix Miata wrote: > Rob Blomquist wrote: > > > The box is running RH 7.1, so you can see that its been up for awhile. > > > The drives on the box are an 850 Mb drive, Make and Model Unknown, a Maxtor 15 > > Gb disk, and a CD-ROM. > > > The 850 is the bootable disk containing the OS, the other 2 drives are mounted > > to that disk, so the 80 Gb would not have to be booted. > > > I am currently uploading Knoppix (why did I ever delete that iso?), and I will > > try running it and see what happens if the BIOS is set to not show the drive. > > Any modern Linux will see 850MB, 15GB, & 80GB drives as long as the > cabling and jumpers are correct. But it may not be able to boot it if it is the drive with /boot on it and /boot is past where the motherboard can see. I solved the problem by buying a Promise IDE-133 controller. It has its own bios for the drives. A good way to bypass flaky ide controllers. They are about $50 or so from Office Despot. They are near the hard drive. I seem to remember them in a Western Digital box. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] Big Disks, Old Mobos and Autotranslation???
Rob Blomquist wrote: > The box is running RH 7.1, so you can see that its been up for awhile. > The drives on the box are an 850 Mb drive, Make and Model Unknown, a Maxtor 15 > Gb disk, and a CD-ROM. > The 850 is the bootable disk containing the OS, the other 2 drives are mounted > to that disk, so the 80 Gb would not have to be booted. > I am currently uploading Knoppix (why did I ever delete that iso?), and I will > try running it and see what happens if the BIOS is set to not show the drive. Any modern Linux will see 850MB, 15GB, & 80GB drives as long as the cabling and jumpers are correct. > I did suffer for awhile with the disk not allowing it to show the 15Gb that is > plugged into the same IDE cable. Its like the 80 Gb gets in the way of the 15 > Gb during the BIOS addressing. The drive controller on the smaller drives may not be adept at correctly managing the 80. IOW, don't use one of the smaller drives as a master to the 80. Make the 80 the secondary master. > Maybe I should let autotranslation attempt to find and use both disks? That's what happens when the BIOS is set to NONE for a drive that is present and properly jumpered and cabled. -- "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" Proverbs 9:10 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] Big Disks, Old Mobos and Autotranslation???
The box is running RH 7.1, so you can see that its been up for awhile. The drives on the box are an 850 Mb drive, Make and Model Unknown, a Maxtor 15 Gb disk, and a CD-ROM. The 850 is the bootable disk containing the OS, the other 2 drives are mounted to that disk, so the 80 Gb would not have to be booted. I am currently uploading Knoppix (why did I ever delete that iso?), and I will try running it and see what happens if the BIOS is set to not show the drive. I did suffer for awhile with the disk not allowing it to show the 15Gb that is plugged into the same IDE cable. Its like the 80 Gb gets in the way of the 15 Gb during the BIOS addressing. Maybe I should let autotranslation attempt to find and use both disks? Rob -- Linux: For the people, by the people. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] Big Disks, Old Mobos and Autotranslation???
Rob Blomquist wrote: > Yesterday, I went out and innocently bought an 80Gb drive for a little server > I was planning on rebuilding. What brand and model? > So I swapped the components from the P-166 into the AMD-K6/2-450 box (FIC > VIA-503+ mobo), connected up the drives, and booted into problems. > Finally, I was able to have the BIOS detect it as a 8.4Gb disk, but no bigger. > The 3rd drive in this box is a 15Gb that is detected and runs great. You've accounted for two drives. What is the 3rd? > I have been reading "Mark Minasi's 2003 PC Upgrade and Maintenence Guide" and > he talks about the addressing problems in the IDE/ATA BIOS space. Then he > goes on to talking about how autotranslation works to circumvent the BIOS and > allow bigger drives to run by the OS detecting the drive itself, and handling > the addressing without BIOS support . MInasi says that autotranslation is > part of some UNIXes. > Basically, I am wondering if Linux supports autotranslation, as when I was > able to run this disk as 8.4 Gb, the kernel was able to report the disk model > number back during boot. I am now wondering if Linux supports > autotranslation, so that if I set up the BIOS correctly, the drive could be > detected and run? All that BIOS translation gibberish is irrelevant if you DO NOT need to boot from the device. If this is the case, simply set the BIOS to NONE for the device. Then Linux will pick it up correctly, unassisted by any deficiencies that may be present in the BIOS. If you DO need to boot from the device, then both the BIOS must be capable of accessing a drive of the desired size, and the BIOS must be correctly set to access the device. The FIC-503+ has an Award BIOS. For an 80GB device, you CANNOT use the BIOS Autodetection fuction that is a separate main menu option with most Socket 7 Award BIOS motherboards. The correct way to configure is to set the options in the first menu screen to AUTO and AUTO for the device. If your BIOS is too old it may not be capable of recognizing a drive larger than 32GB without a BIOS upgrade. BIOS upgrades for the 503+ are available at http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/bios.aspx?model_id=19. A third option is to use the device's size limitation jumper to limit its logical size to 32GB. Some drives can have this limit set via a drive maker's utility software instead of a jumper. My experience with 32GB drive limits is that usually when set, the limit is absolute. In limited cases, I've seen the device driver ignore the limitation setting and be able to access the full drive size. In either case, the translation is the same and of no concern. -- "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" Proverbs 9:10 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
