Re: 137GB barrier - multi O/S install problem

Rod Speed wrote: 
Conrad <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote


I recently managed to scrape enough pennies to rebuild my lightning-bit workstation. Motherboard ECS KM400-M2 (rev 3.0) HD wd1600JB, 160gb.


I created a small NTFS partition (8gb) for Win2k, 


You need to ensure that Win2K has 48
bit LBA enabled for a drive over 137G.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q305098


I came across that mskb article - requirement #1 threw me:

The following conditions are necessary for the correct functioning of 48-bit LBA ATAPI support:
• A computer with a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) installed.


Since when I looked in BIOS, and none of the addressing modes
showed a C/H/S combination over 137GB, I assumed that the
BIOS was NOT 48-bit LBA, but limited by the 137gb "barrier".


I looked in the BIOS and found the following geometry:
C/H/S is 65535/16/255, which adds up to about 137gb.



What matters is what it shows the size as in the black bios
screen at boot time. Looks like you need to update the bios too.


Cool, I'll watch that number at boot.

I would LOVE to update the BIOS. This particular board is a
ECS KM400-M2 (rev 3.0) - the rev 1 board has BIOS images up
to 1.0e currently - the rev 3.0 board (mine) only shows BIOS
rev 1.0 - along with all kinds of dire warnings on the page
about being sure your board revision number matches or
the earth will tremble, pigeons will fly upside down, George
Bush will grow a brain, and other signs of the apocolypse.
Maybe I bought an orphan.


I thought somewhere is some MBR voodoo that needs some consistency in the cyl/head/sector geometry. 


Yeah, some of the partition managers will chuck a wobbly about it.


Further, because Windows apparently believes the limited BIOS
geometry, and since FreeBSD is apparently more correct, what happens to the FAT32 partitions that I want to write to from either O/S? 


They'll be fine while ever they are below the 137G boundary.


That's encouraging - I guess - everything over 130G was going to
be Linux or FreeBSD anyway.


You'll have a problem using the full size of the drive and you
will get the drive wrapping around in some situations and that
will wipe out the partitions on the front of the drive.


That's NOT encouraging - is that scenario only if NTFS partitions
or FAT32 partitions cross that boundary? The upper reaches of the
drive were destined for FreeBSD and Linux anyway.


Should I wipe the whole disk and use FreeBSDs FDisk utility to create the NTFS and FAT32 partitions? 


You still need to enable 48 bit LBS in Win, so you
might as well just wipe the drive and recreate the
partitions again in Win after you have done that.


One drive. I'm on a bit of a budget. The NTFS partition
creation is the first thing that the WIN2K install does,
(reasonably). This is a bit of a chicken and egg - I have
to install Win2k to enable 48-bit to create the partition
that Win2k needs to live on...

Thanks much - I'm clueless about the new drives - the last
actual drive "programming" I did involved 8" floppies on
a TRS-80 - things have changed a bit.

Conrad
.