Topic: installing to a 120 drive fails on format

[sage major]

I am trying to install 6.0 to a new 120 gig drive.  I have 5.6 installed on a 30 gig fine.  When I start the install from the CD It starts the format and after about 5 minutes I get an error
an error occurred trying to format hda3   this problem is serious and the install can not continue

Clicking ok ejects and reboots.
Is there a limit on the size of the drive I can install to?

[Gary Owen]

Unsure if SME has a limit but your BIOS certainly will if your motherboard is more than a yera old. It simply will not recognise 120Gig - your only option, as SME requires the whole drive and not a partition is to check your motherboard manufacturers website to see if there is a BIOS upgrade to support the larger drive - there usually is.

[Greg]

Hi,
I have installed SME on several 120 GB HD's, with and without hardware raid.
Never encountered any problem. As said it may be a BIOS problem. Try to upgrade the BIOS.
Cheers
Greg

[sage]

I will check the bios but I am pretty sure thats not the problem.  the mother board is a msi kt266-a with a 1800 amd  processor  I have used a regular kt266 which is older to format the anidentical drive using tivo software(linux) for upgrading my tivo to a 120 so it should be compatable.

Sage

[Graeme Fleming]

I have installed 6b3 & 6 final on a 200GB HDD attached to a Silicon image ATA133 controller (the IBM PII350 (256MB) BIOS couldn't cope) - worked like a charm and surprisingly fast.

My guess would be that there is a glitch in the 48bit LBA support in your mobo BIOS version that shows up under prodding by Linux/Kudzu.  See if there is an update and try it - nothing ventured, nothing gained!

HTH