[plug] fdisk and the 32GB BIOS limit

[Leon Brooks]

On Monday 15 April 2002 09:38 am, Mike Holland wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Apr 2002, Leon Brooks wrote:
>>> I have a PC with an older Award BIOS that hangs on bootup,
>>> when auto-detecting a >32GB HDD ( >64k virtual cylindars).

>> Consider setting the BIOS parameters manually.

> Maxtor warns against manually setting to >32GB on theses boards, on pain
> of data loss. But no reason is given. Should I try it anyway?

Linux doesn't use the BIOS after LILO has loaded it, so it should be safe. 
Use a leading /boot partition, and after installation fill up the last 
partition with CD images, then check the last complete image with cmp; if 
that works, you should be right.

Presuming the last partition on the drive is /home, insert a suitable (full) 
data CD and type this (the echo is a progress report):

    dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/cd-template.iso   [big pause]
    cd /home
    i=1
    while dd if=cd-template.iso of=cd-copy-$i.iso; do i=$[$i+1]; echo $i; done
    rm -f cd-copy-$i.iso
    cmp cd-template.iso cd-copy-$[$i-1].iso

Cheers; Leon