Very Computer

>I encounter difficulty while installing an IBM 40GB IDE drive
>as a second disk on an old ReadHat5.2, kernel-2.2.13, linux system.
>I am not concerned by lilo boot, the system staying on the
>initial disk.

>I have seen several things, Large-Disk-HOWTO, questions on
>news-groups, IBM web site ... but it is a bit confusing
>for me and I get no conclusion.

>I tried two things: mounting with and without clipping the disk.
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>1- Before clipping the disk with jumpers, dmesg said:
>hdc: IC35L040AVER07-0, ATA DISK drive
>hdc: IC35L040AVER07-0, 39266MB w/1916kB Cache, CHS=14244/16/63, UDMA

>But
>/sbin/fdisk /dev/hdc gives : (fdsisk v2.8)
>The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14244.
>This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with:
>1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO)
>2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
>Command (m for help): p
>Disk /dev/hdc: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 14244 cylinders
>Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
>   Device Boot    Start      End   Blocks   Id  System
>/dev/hdc1             1    14244  7178944+  83  Linux native

>and after mke2fs /dev/hdc1 and mounting
>df returns only 6.9 GB as 14244*1008*512 = 6.9 GB :
>/dev/hdc1            6927244      14  6568283      0%   /supus

>My question: What is responsible of this ? kernel or fdisk ?
>what kernel to have for working ?

>>I encounter difficulty while installing an IBM 40GB IDE drive
>>as a second disk on an old ReadHat5.2, kernel-2.2.13, linux system.
>>I am not concerned by lilo boot, the system staying on the
>>initial disk.

>Check the BIOS notes from your mother board to see if you have the
>latest and if it supports that size.  I have had 2 linux boxes that
>needed a bios flash.  One was an Acer that was stopping at 32gb and the
>other was a Microstar that was stopping at  36gb.  This was a problem
>even in windows.  If you can disable your current drive and place the
>40gb in by itself try booting a win98 boot disk and see if Windows will
>fdisk the full 40gb.  This will eliminate the Linux kernel and check the
>BIOS.

>>>I encounter difficulty while installing an IBM 40GB IDE drive
>>>as a second disk on an old ReadHat5.2, kernel-2.2.13, linux system.
>>>I am not concerned by lilo boot, the system staying on the
>>>initial disk.

>>Check the BIOS notes from your mother board to see if you have the
>>latest and if it supports that size.  I have had 2 linux boxes that
>>needed a bios flash.  One was an Acer that was stopping at 32gb and the
>>other was a Microstar that was stopping at  36gb.  This was a problem
>>even in windows.  If you can disable your current drive and place the
>>40gb in by itself try booting a win98 boot disk and see if Windows will
>>fdisk the full 40gb.  This will eliminate the Linux kernel and check the
>>BIOS.

> The BIOS isn't a problem as long as the bootable partition is wholly within the
> first 32GB (or for some really old systems, the first 1024 cylinders).  I was
> able to boot a 60GB drive on a machine that only recognizes up to 32GB via the
> BIOS (with the above constraints).

> But as I said (which you did not quote), his version of Linux fdisk is pre-32GB.

> I encounter difficulty while installing an IBM 40GB IDE drive
> as a second disk on an old ReadHat5.2, kernel-2.2.13, linux system.
> I am not concerned by lilo boot, the system staying on the
> initial disk.

 <snip>

> I have read that kernel-2.2.14 is better, but the
> Documentation/ide.txt of the two releases are the same about
> "How To Use *Big* ATA/IDE drives with Linux"

> Any help ?

> Thanks in advance.

> Jean-Pol Guillement

> I know altleast kernel 2.2.16 will handle the large disks. (so why
> not take 2.2.20 that is the latest 2.2.x) Since it is the
> second disk you can set it to "not installed " (in the bios) if the bios
> does not like it. This means the bios normally will set a slow (safe)
> PIO mode so you may have to set manually to get full speed out of the
> drive.