[Gllug] Hard disk upgrade for older system

[John Winters]

Matthew Joseph Smith wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've got a Compaq AP550 workstation (dual P3), from about 2000, and as I 
> understand it these systems (with ATA disk controllers) can only use 
> hard disks up to 128Gb.  Does anyone know if I can use more than one 
> disk, each of less than that size - say 120Gb and 40Gb - adding up to 
> more?  I ask as I may purchase at the computer fair tomorrow and many of 
> the vendors do not speak enough English to answer this.

It certainly isn't a problem having a total disc size more than the 
limit - the limit comes about because of some silly choices of field 
size in addressing the disc, but it applies to only a single disc at a time.

These boundaries blur in my mind, but for one of them at least ISTR that 
it's only the BIOS which has a problem.  Provided you have one 
small(ish) disc which you can boot from, Linux will then happily address 
larger discs.  I know I've done this in the past, but it may not have 
been at the 137GB limit.

HTH
John
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