[Gllug] Booting older x86 boards from a large ide disc

[John Winters]

On Mon, 2004-08-30 at 13:15, Chris Bell wrote:
> Hello,
>    I have often heard that it is possible to boot an older computer from a
> disc that is larger than the BIOS understands, simply by ensuring that the
> bootable partition is completely within the area addressable by the BIOS.
>    Unfortunately my experience has always been that the BIOS hangs during
> the initial start if the primary master disc is oversize,

I find it depends which threshold you're up against.  If you have a BIOS
which understands up to 137G then there's no problem.  I have such a
machine with a 250G disc and it boots fine.

OTOH, I have an older machine which has a lower threshold (don't
remember what OTTOMH) and if I let on that it has an 80G disc in it, it
has a fit of the vapours during POST.  The only way to start it is to
tell it the large disc isn't there and boot from a much smaller one.

John

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