[plug] Bit of hardware advice

[Nick Bannon]

On Wed, Nov 17, 1999 at 03:28:28PM +0800, Michael Hunt wrote:
[...]
> > There was a problem with earlier kernels, but recent kernels should have
> > no problems accessing over 8GB.
> 
> That could possibly be it. Or maybe Bios settings, I never really looked at
> the problem in to much depth.

The BIOS certainly has a part to play - I know two people in the last
week who were having installation/booting problems with large hard drives
that were marked "NORMAL" in the BIOS - changing to to "LBA" fixed them. I
think if you let a modern BIOS autodetect the drives then things are fine.

Fundamentally it's all the result of the changes and hacks done to keep
the old API for talking to MFM drives on the XT limping along... Have
a look at the Large Disk HOWTO for some more of the sordid details.
There's apparently 33.8GB and 137GB limits coming up, too...

Nick.

-- 
  Nick Bannon  | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick at it.net.au | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal