Right, that's my impression as well. EZ-BIOS is actually referred to as
a "BIOS overlay", it loads after the BIOS. I have dealt with EZ-BIOS
and other pre-installed HD software (as on HP-distributed SCSI drives,
Compaqs, etc.) in various ways, including:
For EZ-BIOS, I've used unistall on the EZ-BIOS setup disk.
For any IDE disk, I often use clear.hdd (acquired from Western Digital's
site), which blows away any and all cylinder boundary markers in a few
seconds. I've never used it on any of the new huge IDE drives (18GB+),
so do so with caution. This is my preferred method, as it's quick and
final.
Finally, you should be able to use fdisk and format (DOS or Linux) to
kill any offending partitions/MBR code. Just don't try to deal with
this issue by reinstalling your BIOS!
-- Peter Yellman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Peter Ogden wrote:
Where did you get the idea that Hard Disk Drivers flash the BIOS? Every
different model of motherboard has a different BIOS, there is no way they
could provide BIOS changes for every motherboard. Yes, these drivers can
cause problems and they can be difficult to remove (though some do now have
uninstallation procedures), but they are simply a driver that starts from
the MBR and intercepts all disk access code.
- Peter Ogden
Perth, West Australia
E-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.esbconsult.com.au/ogden/
or: http://surf.to/locost/
-Original Message-
From: Charles A Edwards [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, 22 June 2000 9:03 pm
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [[newbie] Fw: LILO Boot Magic install ?] new
explanation
The most likely causes of this error actually has nothing
to do with the
MBR, where it is at, or the size of any partitions. If your
hd was ever
formatted using a manufacturer floppy ( with IBM it is
EZDrive, Maxtor is
MaxBlast and I am sure others also have their own). The
program not only
formatted your drive but it also flashed your BIOS to fool the hd size
limitation and UDMA 66 incompatibility that older BIOSs had.
If this is the
case then neither LILO nor BootMagic can or will work as a
bootloader on
your system.
SystemCommander will work and in Mandrake 7.1 GRUB will
work.If neither
of these 2 is an option then the only be able to boot Linux is from a
floppy.
Charles
- Original Message -
From: "Michael Scottaline" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 5:06 AM
Subject: Re: [[newbie] Fw: LILO Boot Magic install ?]
"aifusionextreme" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
big snip
The only Clue is the size:
Boot magic actually gives an error message which says
that the primary
partition must be in the first 1023 cylnders. Why is cares
about the rest
of
the HD and not just the mbr I cant farthom. But there you
have it. Since
boot
magic wont install and lilo does but fails I assume they
both cant handle
larger drives. When I installed before I had nice neat
partitions around
the
2-4 GB mark. I assume this didnt exceed the 1023 cylders
option, assuming
that
this is the cause. Currently I have a 14GB and a 40GB. Both
exitbite the
same
behavoiur.
if any body with the no-how can help in confirming this theory or
indictae
what limitations the software might have the Please Help.
It is not just
me as
you acan see from the posting.
If there is a cyclionder limitation can you explain why a
boot manager
needs
to know about anythning but the mbr ?
More importantly how can go about fixing this bug ?
=
The size of the drive is NOT that critical, provided the
boot sector is
BELOW
the 1024 limit (usually about 8 gig). Thus create a small
(10-12 meg)
boot
partition below that limit (entirely) and linux should boot
just fine.
Caldera has included a new booter in their eDesktop 2.4
distribution that
evidently doesn't have this limitation. My guess is that
most distro will
be
following suit with something similar in upcoming editions
of their own
distros.
Mike
"Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol
than alcohol has taken out of me."
--Winston Churchill
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at
http://webmail.netscape.com.
