[plug] Big new hdd in old pc

[Richard Meyer]

----- Forwarded by Richard Meyer/Australia/Contr/IBM on 17/01/2003 03:23 PM
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                      Tim Bowden                                                                                                    
                      <bowden at iinet.net        To:       plug at plug.linux.org.au                                                     
                      .au>                     cc:                                                                                  
                                               Subject:  Re: [plug] Big new hdd in old pc                                           
                      17/01/2003 03:11                                                                                              
                      PM                                                                                                            
                      Please respond to                                                                                             
                      plug                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                    



>On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 14:45, Andrew Furey wrote:
>> > I would like to install a new seagate 80gb hdd in an
>> > old pc with an asus mb (440lx based) but the bios
>> > won't find it.  I have been advised that using an
> ide
>> > controller card probably would not solve the problem
>> > as it will still only see 40 gb or so.  Anyone had
>> > any experience with this?
>
>> If it's anything like mine at home (60Gb in a P100) it
>> is still usable as the full 80Gb, although you won't
>> be able to put it in the BIOS, and hence you WON'T be
>> able to BOOT from it. At that point your options are
>> to either put another smaller HDD in for /boot to
>> reside on, or to boot from a floppy disk (not my
>> preferred method).
>>
<snip>


>Thanks Andrew,

>Just what I wanted to hear.  Perhaps I need to build a boot cdrom as I
>don't have any other hdd's lying around and I am not putting a floppy in
>it.  I seem to remember something reading something sometime about
>making a boot cd.  Any pointers anyone?

>Thanks,

>Tim Bowden


Maybe I'm missing something here, but can't you define it in the BIOS as
being 1Gb (or something - same geometry, except the cylinders are way less)
and define /boot within that space, and it should then boot. The Linux
kernels really don't care what the BIOS says, they know better. Remember a
few years ago, I had to reinstall all software on /dev/hda of my PC. I had
a primary partition defined on /dev/hdb as fat32. Dratted Win refused to
install properly. After the first reboot, it insisted that I put my CD in
the D: drive, and no power on earth could persuade it that the spirit was
willing, but the CD just wouldn't fit in the hard drive.

I then "disappeared" /dev/hdb using the BIOS, and everything installed,
forgot to "reappear" the hdd and Linux booted very nicely, even though the
kernel was on a drive that "wasn't there". Of course Win had have it
readded.

RichardM