[TriLUG] IDE Hard disk limitations BIOS and Linux

Joseph Mack mack.joseph at epa.gov
Mon Jan 3 11:41:53 EST 2005


Rick DeNatale wrote:

> First of all, I really don't care if can can boot from the large
> drives  I figure that I can continue to use the existant 9MB SCSI boot
> drive, although I was figuring to start the large drives with a
> smallish partition just in case.

the bios determines what size of disk the machine will recognise. If the
disk is larger, the POST will hang if it's on AUTO. This is before the
partition table is read. Once Linux is running, the bios limitations
are irrelevant. So you can boot from a floppy (well not with 2.6) to
a machine with disks that are too large (and which the bios disk 
setup is told there are no disks). So you need to boot off something
the bios knows about and then you can run on anything.

Joe


-- 
Joseph Mack PhD, High Performance Computing & Scientific Visualization
LMIT, Supporting the EPA Research Triangle Park, NC 919-541-0007
Federal Contact - John B. Smith 919-541-1087 - smith.johnb at epa.gov



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