[sclug] Re: [OT] Linux support for large HDD

[Ian Park]

On Mon, 8 Aug 2005, Ian Park wrote:

>> Please forgive a "wet behind the ears" question...
>>
>> I'm planning to use an oldish (ca 1998) motherboard (300 MHz Pentium 
II,
>> 512MB RAM) as the basis of a fileserver for my home network, using a 
6.3GB
>> hard drive as the primary master for the OS and a 160GB hard drive 
as the
>> primary slave for the file store. I'm pretty sure that the BIOS on the
>> motherboard won't support 48-bit LBA, so the *BIOS* won't be able to 
see the
>> full capacity of the 160GB hard drive (hence the 6.3GB drive for the 
OS...);
>> however what I've been able to glean from Googling gives me hope 
that once
>> I've got Linux booted up from the 6.3GB drive the BIOS is 
irrelevant, and the
>> Linux kernel drivers will look after the big hard drive.
>>
>> Can anyone tell me whether or not I'm being hopelessley optimistic, 
please?


My understanding is that the three components you need for a 48-bit LBA
device to be supported are:

a) the BIOS, if you're intending to boot from files over the 137GB limit
b) the OS
c) the ATA controller.

You may or may not run into problems on c). Give it a whirl, and let us
know!  :-)

>> TIAFYH
>>
>> Ian


HTH,
Alex.

Hi all

I've at last got round to setting up my Pentium II box with the big HD
and Debian Sarge (on the cover DVD of the September 2005 issue of "Linux
Format"). I put two odd hard drives (6.3GB Samsung and 5GB Quantum) on
the on-board primary IDE controller, a DVD-ROM and Onstream tape drive
on the on-board secondary IDE controller, and the 160GB Western Digital
HD on a Highpoint HPT366 controller on a PCI card. Installation went 
well (apart from the fact that first time round I forgot to make hda1 
bootable - Duh!), and Debian recognises the Western Digital drive as 160GB.

This is encouraging news for anyone who's thinking of doing what I have 
done - the only thing you need to remember is that it's prudent to put a 
"small" (sub-137GB) hard disk in to boot from. I think this is a 
sensible idea anyway, to segregate the Linux system from the data.

All the best

Ian
-- 
Ian Park
17 Pyle Hill
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 7JJ
Tel: +44 (0)1635 821420
email: ian at chalmers-park.name