From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Oct 14 12:30:29 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA12861 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:30:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-11.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA12703 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:30:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from freebsd-root@i-zone.demon.co.uk) Received: from [158.152.227.78] (helo=i-zone.demon.co.uk) by post.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 2.05 #1) id 0zTWc9-00037r-00 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 19:29:42 +0000 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 20:04:12 +0100 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: John Subject: Re: Slow booting with 2.2.7 on new 5.1gb IDE disk References: <3.0.6.32.19981014092050.00911100@pop.pluris.com> In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.19981014092050.00911100@pop.pluris.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike (32) Version 4.00 <5jmCrxUbpyYdwGXid1yqlWD9$N> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In article <3.0.6.32.19981014092050.00911100@pop.pluris.com>, Robert Wright writes >I just installed a 5.1gb E IDE hard disk in my system. Then did a fresh >install of 2.2.7. The install went fine. However when the system boots it >takes *forever* to read the bootstrap files and the kernel. It takes a comparative age to see my 3GB partition on my laptop. This is on a P100. It pauses a good 10 seconds or so when booting up. What do you define as an age (how many seconds?)? > >I checked the faqs and found two things that might apply: > >- There are disk geometry issues I need to look into >- The root partition must be less in the first 504mb. > >When I labelled the disk I made root 150mb and made it the first partition >so I think the second one shouldn't be a problem. > >Two other things concern me: > >- This is an old PC with an IDE not E IDE controller while the disk is E >IDE. Salesman said this shouldn't be an issue. (-: IDE slower than eide - this will contribute to the problem you're seeing. I think he meant that eide is backwards compatible with ide. You can pick up multi i/o controller cards quite cheaply if you want the benefits of eide. (though I'm no ide expert - I have done this and seen a noticeable improvement on the 486 machine) >- The BIOS on this system is six years old. I think it suffers from the old >504mb limit issue. Are there any solutions to this if it is a problem? On my 486sx25 with 1.6gb drive I had translation software from Maxtor (EZ-Drive, I think it was called). It became visible when the hd controller woke up, then booted to Linux. This was with a phoenix bios. I later found this software wasn't required when I downloaded the latest bios - I 'user defined' the HD. However, you would be better IMOHO getting a faster/more modern m/b and cpu -- John To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message