Topic: Hard Drive - Bios Problems

[laurie_lewis]

Hi all,

I am trying to intstall a Western Digital 200 gig hard drive (IDE) on an Intel L440GX Server Board.  I have checked the BIOS version and it is the latest version (14.3).  The 200 Gig hard drive shows as 137??? something.  Obviously not able to recognise it.

Under windows I would consider useing a Dynamic Disk Overlay when the BIOS would not allow the disk to be read but I have no idea whether I can do this with SME or even Linux.

Any assistance appreciated.

Laurie

[TrevorB]

Under windows I would consider useing a Dynamic Disk Overlay when the BIOS would not allow the disk to be read but I have no idea whether I can do this with SME or even Linux.

Works fine (this was how I ran my older servers for a number of years - now have m/b's that recognises bigger disks).

It happens prior to booting, so no impact whether it is running M$, Linux, Solaris etc. (just be careful if using partition magic or any of that type of tool).

Trevor B

[raem]

Just run the sme install from CD and the Linux OS will recognize the 200Gb disk, even if the BIOS does not.
I just installed sme 6.x to a P166 with 200Gb drive and it recognixed the full drive capacity.

[the_mad_prof]

Yes, as long as the bios can "see" the drive at all you should be ok, linux queries the cylinders, heads, sectors info from the drive and does not rely on the bios (unlike Win$).

On another tack, for a 440 chipset you are unlikely to have anyhting quicker than ATA33.  You could always buy a cheapo PCI ATA133 host card (about £5 from Ebay) and unlock a bit more potential from that big drive.  I used to have a CMD 649 chipsetted controller card - SME saw this fine.