Large Hard Drive install problems

[brad.mugleston at comcast.net]

Brad Mugleston, KI0OT

There are 10 types of people in this world.  Those that
understand binary and those that don't.

On Tue, 7 Jun 2005, Rick Stevens wrote:

> brad.mugleston at comcast.net wrote:
> >
> > Brad Mugleston, KI0OT
> >
> > There are 10 types of people in this world.  Those that
> > understand binary and those that don't.
> >
> > On Tue, 7 Jun 2005, Rick Stevens wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Mugleston, Brad wrote:
> > >
> > > > I was given a PII computer - generic brand, can't read who made the
> > > > board
> > > > w/o pulling the computer apart.  I'm going to use it as a file server
> > > > for my
> > > > house and I've got a 160G hard drive to put in it.  It only recognizes
> > > > 8G of
> > > > the drive.  Do I need a special card for this drive or am I doing
> > > > something
> > > > wrong during the FC2 install? Maybe a bios upgrade?
> > > >
> > > > If its a driver card what information do I need to have to get the right
> > > > one?  It's a 160G ATA 100 drive.  Slow but cheep.
> > > >
> > > > If it's bios - I haven't upgraded a bios for a long time will I need to
> > > > install windows to do this (I don't remember seeing a bios upgrade for
> > > > Linux
> > > > but again that was awhile ago).
> > >
> > > Well, gee.  PIIs are pretty long in the tooth.  It may be that it won't
> > > grock anything bigger than 8GB.
> > >
> > > First, see if the BIOS supports LBA mode.  If it does, then set it and
> > > see if it recognizes the drive properly.  If it doesn't, then see if
> > > there's a "user specified" setting where you can put in the cylinders,
> > > heads and sectors.  Remember that old BIOS' often couldn't handle >8GB
> > > because of the way they stored the CHS values.  You should calculate
> > > the number of blocks on the drive (cylinders * heads * sectors), then
> > > bugger the CHS values you feed the BIOS.  Most often the BIOS is limited
> > > to 1024 cylinders so you have to tell it 255 heads, then divide the
> > > total number of blocks by 261120 (1024 * 255), and use that value for
> > > the sector count.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
> > >
> > > Good luck.
> >
> >
> > Thanks,  I probably need it.  Yes the BIOS handles LBA mode but
> > thats when it stopped at 8G (I just let it automatically discover
> > it).  So how many blocks do I need for 160G?  I think thats what
> > your suggesting I do.
>
> Yup.  Blocks = cylinders * heads * sectors.  You should be able to glom
> that off the drive's label.  If not, look it up on the manufacturer's
> website.  Then go into "manual" mode and set the cylinder count to 1024,
> heads to 255 and the sectors to the value given by
>
> 	sectors = blocks/261120
>
 See if that'll do it.



Thanks, just got back from seing Hitch hikers Guide --- good show
but I think I'll try this tomorrow.


Brad