Large drive support

[shallymeister]

Hi, I just installed linux fedora core 2 on a system I am trying to make into a file server. I have an 80gig seagate drive that I put into it. My BIOS is old and will not recognize the hard drive so I put the limiting jumper on it to get past that. I tried not telling the BIOS about the drive but it didn't like that. During install I told it to force the bootloader to LBA32. The problem I am having is if I do fdisk to look at the drive capactity it is only showing me the clipped amount of 32gig. Does this mean I only have access to 32gig or will I need to create new partitions to utilize the full capacity of the hard disk?

[AlexK]

Hi,
Since you used a limiting jumper to force the bios to recognize the drive as 32GB, the OS can only access this part. In order to access the full 80GB, you need to remove the jumper.

However, since your BIOS is old, I would suggest that you flash your bios to an updated version. To find a newer BIOS version, check your motheroard manufacturer's site. Be careful as if you flash your BIOS incorrectly, you will end up with a big paperweight.

[drakebasher]

Be sure and read Large Disk HOWTO from Linux Documentation Project. What AlexK says is right, but there is more. Apparently, your results may depend on just how old your BIOS is, or who's it is. If all else fails, you may be able to use an ATA/133 card or whatever they are generically. On my system, there was no other workable alternative (my BIOS can't see over 8Gb) so now I boot to "SCSI" which is my Belkin ATA/133 card.

[shallymeister]

The BIOS is old and I looked for a newer version but didn't have any luck. I also looked at the large disk HOW TO thats where I got the idea that linux would recognize the remaining space. I also tried removing the jumper during install but that didn't work. I read where you can pass the kernel geometry arguments where it will ignore the BIOS geometry. Is this an alternative to flashing the BIOS?

[drakebasher]

I read where you can pass the kernel geometry arguments where it will ignore the BIOS geometry. Is this an alternative to flashing the BIOS?

Passing the geometry to the kernel did not work for me. Fdisk would still show my 40Gb Maxtor as 21.1Gb. I had to install the MaxBlast dynamic disk overlay for Linux to get the size right and I had to use the ATA/133 card to isolate the drive from the BIOS.
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/top...tml&highlight=

[shallymeister]

Thanks guys. I guess I will just live with the 32gig for now.