[Nottingham] BIG disk bootup fun

[nottlug at spandex.nildram.co.uk]

M> Still might have been easier to put in a new motherboard and CPU
M> (:-/) Aside: A cheap CD-R disk lasts 'not very long' in a x54 speed
M> CDROM! Multiple radial cracks soon appear (:-((
M> Or is there a still easier way?

I have a couple of old machines with large (160Gb) disks running
Debian Woody.

On one machine I used a utility from the disk manufacturer (Maxtor)
which temporarily fools the BIOS into thinking it's a smaller disk and
it will then boot from it.

On the other machine I ended up simply telling the BIOS there was no
disk there (otherwise it would crash while looking) and putting an old
spare disk in there just to boot from. This is probably not a bad way
to go as I'm sure you'd have no difficulty rustling up an old disk of
under 10Gb as nobody seems to have much use for them any more.

BTW, hello everyone, new here, have lurked for a week or two. Running
Debian boxes and Smoothwall as a firewall. Used to run RedHat (and
still do on a machine at work) but after installing Woody a few months
ago I've become a Debian evangelist.

Regards,

Matt