adding IDE Controller to RedHat 9 on i686

[Alexander Povolotsky]

Robert - in the case you've described - I understood - you've added both IDE controller and the hard disk drive - if I my understanding is correct -  how many IDE controllers you already had on your system before adding this one ? ... I presume you had two and were adding
3rd (see quote below) ...

Also Robert - could you please clarify (hopefully in gory details ;-) )
what steps you took " to justify a CDRW" ?
 
So, in general, does adding 3rd (any "supported") controller works with Red Hat 9 or not ?

Off this list I got the folowing response on that:

"Assuming that Linux supports (recognizes) the PCI controller (I don't 
know, but it should), its configured to be the tertiary controller (IO 
addresses, IRQ, possibly DMA) correctly, and either the kernel sees it, 
or you can configure the proper kernel parameters such that the kernel 
can use it, yes, theoretically, you can do this. You mught want to look at the Linux Boot Prompt HOWTO for the proper kernel parameters, if you find that you need them.  Disk devices on the tertiary controller would be hde & hdf.  Note that your mb BIOS won't see any drives on this 
controller in any event, so its completely up to Linux to recognize it 
and configure it properly."
 
Alex

Ed Wilts wrote:
> On 10/31/04 00:02, Alexander Povolotsky wrote:
> 
>> I have Linux Red Hat 9 on Pentium III PC (Dell Optiplex 110,  848
>> Mhz, 128 Mb of memory )running off the 8 Gb Disk Drive; there is also
>> small boot drive on that IDE controller.
> 
> 
>> I bought SIIG UltraATA 100 PCI Controller and 80 Gb Western Digital
>> IDE disk drive - how could I add this new controller with this new
>> disk drive and make existing Linux recognize this new drive as
>> additional disk space ?
> 
> 
> Many UltraATA controllers appear to Linux as SCSI controllers since 
> that's what the BIOS says.  I had a Promise controller once and I had to 
> tell the BIOS to boot off a SCSI disk if I wanted to boot from a disk 
> plugged into the UltraATA controller.
> 
>> Is SIIG UltraATA 100 PCI Controller supported by RedHat 9 ? If yes, do 

>> I need to do something specific 
> 
> 
> It's probably supported.  Plug it in and look in dmesg for /dev/sda 
> devices.  Do an fdisk /dev/sda and see if it sees your 80GB drive.
> 
>> I also was told that tsome motherboards would not support more than
>> 32 Gb drive - how could I check what my motherboard limit is?
> 
> 
> Your system should not have this limit.  If you're using LILO, you 
> should switch to GRUB though.  GRUB is the default for Red Hat Linux 9 
> so unless you changed it, you should be okay.
> 

That's interesting. When I upgraded to RH7.3 I added a big drive to my 
ancient Iwill xa-100+ based machine using a Maxtor (rebranded Promise 
using PDC20267) ATA-100 card and drives showed up as /dev/hde thru 
/dev/hdh. Worked fine. What DID NOT WORK, however, was my floppy drive. 
That controller stomped all over it, forcing me to justify a CDRW. 
Sometimes, you just can't lose for winning! :-)



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