Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 06:56:55 -0600 From: "Duke Normandin" <dnormandin@freewwweb.com> To: <doug@polands.org> Cc: "freebsd-questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Old BIOS, large HD, and FreeBSD 4.0R Message-ID: <006701bfad25$8a723940$4edba7d1@webserver>
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On Saturday, April 22, 2000 9:20 AM Doug Poland <doug@polands.org> wrote: >> >> Is the HD UDMA/66 or /33? If it is, you will have to get >> >> a controller because those old systems don't support UDMA. >> >> >> >> That's probably why it isn't showing up in the BIOS. >> >> >> >> --bhishan >> >> >> >It says Ultra ATA/66. So that means I'll have to get a >> >new IDE controller for the box? Any ideas how much a >> >controller costs and suggested eRetailers? >> > >> >Appreciate your help! >> > >> >-- >> >Doug >> > >> > >> > > >> From: jpaetzel [mailto:jpaetzel@hutchtel.net] >> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 21:07 >> I think it will be pretty hard to find an ISA controller that supports >> ATA/66. Your BIOS is limited to 2.1 gig partitions, so the largest >> harddrive it can support fully is a 8 gig with 4 partitions on it. I can't >> really think of any way around that short of upgrading the BIOS....and I >> don't think that would be too easy either. I don't know what the situation >> is in your area, but in Minneapolis some searching will find you old Pentium >> motherboards chip and fan combos for about $30-$50. That might make more >> sense than fighting with a 486. >> > >Thanks for the answers. Since I occasionally get old 486's for free, >and canabilize them for parts, I don't have to spend money on an old >box to get it running FreeBSD. These freebies also give me the chance >to install the latest version of FreeBSD and "operate" on them and not >having to worry about the consquences. I have quite a collection of >old 486's running various releases. This old machine in question will >have to be satisfied with a couple of old 250mb/340mb HDs that are >lying around and I'll save the 174gb HD for another day. Some day I'm >going to spend money on a real computer! > >-- >Doug > > >> >> > >> >> > Hello, >> >> > >> >> > I've got an old 486 with phoenix BIOS dated 1992. I >> >> > tried to install an new WD 17.4GB hard drive and set >> >> > the Master drive to auto-detect. Upon boot the >> >> > BIOS tells me there's an error auto-detecting the >> >> > drive. >> >> > >> >> > If I set drive0 to not installed and continue >> >> > with 4.0R installation, the probe finds the drive >> >> > on ad0, and can read/write during an install. >> >> > >> >> > It looks like my BIOS simply will not recognize >> >> > this HD. Is there anyway around it? Can I boot >> >> > off a "FreeBSD boot floppy" and then load the >> >> > kernel from the hard drive. >> >> > >> >> I don't know if there is a way to do this or not...never tried it. >> >> >> >> > I know the obvious question is why am I wasting >> >> > my time with this old box? Well, it was free, >> >> > I got a great deal on two Western Digital HDs, >> >> > and this machine's only purpose in life is to >> >> > run FreeBSD and act as a hard-drive back-up >> >> > device. >> >> > >> >> Sounds like an interesting fiberglass pigeon for my 10 guage. :) I like >> old hardware, too, but I try not to actually use it for anything if I don't >> have to. >> >> Josh Just my .02 cents..... I use a Compaq 486DX2-66 and run Quantum's OnTrack Disk Overlay on any HDD that is over 550M (I think that's the old upper limit?). This allows the use of large HDDs. There may be other utilities that do the same, I don't know. The only downside to the use of these so-called Disk Overlays (as far as I can see) is that they need to live in the HDD's MBR, precluding the installation of FBsd's various "boot managers". I got around that hurdle by creating a "boot-up" disk that automatically boots wd1. -duke To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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