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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Agafaster on December 06, 2007, 02:34:55 PM
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I have a Viglen P3/450 I recently had to replace the hard disk on - its the kids PC, not mine! The smallest disk I could find was an 80GB PATA. unfortunately, the BIOS (award IIRC - its at home, I'm not !) didnt recognise it, and I had to jumper the HDD down - via the '32GB clip' jumper setting. now I have 48GB thats doing nowt !
is there something I can do in the interim before I get round to upgrading to a more modern mobo ?
If I attempt to install Debian 4.0 Etch Linux (off a DVD I have), will it see what the BIOS doesnt ?
Can I reflash to a more modern BIOS or summat ?
Ta !
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Agafaster wrote:
now I have 48GB thats doing nowt !
is there something I can do in the interim before I get round to upgrading to a more modern mobo ?
You can send that 48GB to me Aga. :lol:
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I remember that the hard drive manufacturers used to do extra software for mobo's that couldn't see the full size of the drive. Certainly worth a look (unless as you state there is already a BIOS update that covers this issue).
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Two options:
- either get an updated (manufacturer)/patched BIOS
- use disk manager style software (usually from HDD manufacturer) that works around the BIOS bug
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Quite often, BIOS updates can take care of that issue. It depends on the manufacturer though.
Linux may be able to see the whole disk (not sure though), but I think a lot of boot loaders can only access what the BIOS reports.
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meega wrote:
Agafaster wrote:
now I have 48GB thats doing nowt !
is there something I can do in the interim before I get round to upgrading to a more modern mobo ?
You can send that 48GB to me Aga. :lol:
Meega mate, if I could, I would.
At a price of course ! ;-)
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Oliver wrote:
Quite often, BIOS updates can take care of that issue. It depends on the manufacturer though.
Linux may be able to see the whole disk (not sure though), but I think a lot of boot loaders can only access what the BIOS reports.
still, that would be no different to when we were first installing Debian on A1's using RDB schema - I just put the boot partition in the lower 32 gig, surely ?
I'll see if Viglen, or the BIOS peeps have ote.
Thanks all !
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Agafaster wrote:I just put the boot partition in the lower 32 gig, surely ?
Quite right. Just something to be aware of. You could try a live CD, and check if your partition manager can access the whole disk.
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I'm not quite sure if this software will work on such a large HDD, but have you ever tried EZ-Drive? You can also look for MaxBlast which is an OEM relabled EZ-Drive software that shipped with Maxtor hard drives. What it does is create an overlay that bypasses the BIOS limitations. I would send you a copy, but alas this modern day PC doesn't have a floppy drive (damn modern day non-legacy supporting PC's grrrr!)
Alternatively you can buy an ATA-xxx (xxx denotes the ATA speed of the hard drive) adapter card that fits in a PCI slot. Those also provide large hard drive support for systems with BIOS limiations.
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@agafaster
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/
Saluditos,
Ferrán.