From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 6 18: 1:32 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from aragorn.neomedia.it (aragorn.neomedia.it [195.103.207.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EBD715791 for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2000 18:01:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bartequi@nojunk.com) Received: from bartequi.ottodomain.org (ppp4-pa4.neomedia.it [195.103.207.196]) by aragorn.neomedia.it (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id CAA12857; Fri, 7 Jan 2000 02:26:02 +0100 (CET) From: Salvo Bartolotta Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000 01:27:25 GMT Message-ID: <20000107.1272500@bartequi.ottodomain.org> Subject: Re: Installation of freebsd on Harddisk > 8GB To: "Conni" Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG References: X-Mailer: Supercalifragilis X-Priority: 3 (Normal) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< On 1/7/00, 12:12:07 AM, "Conni" wrote regarding Installation of freebsd on Harddisk > 8GB: > Hello, > there is a problem installing freebsd on Harddisks > 8GB. Unfortunatel= y it > is nearly impossible to buy a new harddisk smaller than 13GB. I found a > workaround in creating more than one slice each of them smaller than 8GB but > this workaround ends at 32GB. I use actually on my win98 machine in my= > Hardware-Shop the huge IBM 37GB Harddisk and hopefully look forward that > there will be a way to use such a disk under freebsd... > Conni Dear Conni, the "8 GB problem" is NOT related to FreeBSD as such. It is due to the limitations of most BIOS. They cannot load your kernel if it is outside the "8 GB boundary". Workaround: your root partition, which is "/" (and NOT " /root "), must reside within the first 8 GB of your hard disk. The rest of the system may go wherever you like. N.B. FreeBSD slice =3D partition (in DOS parlance). Within one FreeBSd slice, you can have further subdivisions. These subdivisions are called "partitions"; of course they are NOT the same as DOS partitions. Typically, you define one *slice* containing the following FreeBSD *partitions*: 1) " / " 2) swap 3) /var 4) /usr If you have installed more than one operating system, you have to arrange things so that your FreeBSD " / " partition may lie within the first 8 GB boundary. To make sure this is the case, you might want to define even more than one slice, and place your " / " within the 8 GB forbidden limit. One concrete example. I had once a harddisk already containing three operating system. I had almost reached the 8 GB limit. So I defined one small slice containing " / " and the swap space (aka "virtual memory"), without overcoming the 8 GB deadly limit; I put the rest (" /var " and " /usr ") into another slice on another disk. Dear Conni, this is more difficult to say than to understand :-) I hope you will get a clear picture. Some BIOSes may require that the kernel should lie on the first two IDE disk. These are usually labeled "disk 0" and "disk 1". However, more modern BIOSes do NOT have this limitation. Personally, I am able to boot my Linux OS with no problems, albeit it resides *entirely* on my third IDE disk ("disk 2"). Cave canem :-) As to the 32 GB issue, this has already been discussed at some length. You might want to search the archives an retrieve a lot of information. As a starter, I'll include this little piece of wisdom for you: ------- Forwarded Message Return-Path: phk Return-Path: Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 20:15:01 +1100 (EST) From: Bruce Evans X-Sender: bde@alphplex.bde.org To: Peter Jeremy Cc: hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: wanna buy an EIDE harddisk ... 5400 or 7200 for home use (noise) In-Reply-To: <00Jan4.121107est.40331@border.alcanet.com.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=3DUS-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 1a6af87e7234417948438d6504778789 On Tue, 4 Jan 2000, Peter Jeremy wrote: > SCSI went though it's `disks are too big to use' stage at ~1GB - the > original SCSI DA read/write commands only allowed a 21-bit LBA. The > next problem will occur at 2^32 blocks (about 2TB), which is still a > few years off for bare disks, though it may be a problem for RAID > controllers before then. There are also some PC BIOS-related problems. There are lots of critical sizes for ATA disks: 0.5284GB (C/H/S =3D 1024/16/63) (limit for MFM disks and old software)= 8.4557GB (C/H/S =3D 1024/256/63) (1024-cylinder limit for old software)= 8.4552GB (C/H/S =3D 16383/16/63) (the ATA standard was changed in 1997 to require the default C/H/S for large drives to be precisely 16383/16/63 instead of a geometry that actually allows access to the entire drive. In other words, the firmware is required to be specially broken to limit the damage caused by old software. This broke non-broken software like the 1996 FreeBSD wd driver.) 33.8228GB (C/H/S =3D 65536/16/63) (the FreeBSD wd driver now converts from C/H/S =3D 16363/16/63 to actual_C/16/63. This is horribly broken when actual_C > 65536. The hardware only supports 16-bit cylinder numbers, and writing to cylinder 65536 actually writes to cylinder 0.) 136.9020GB (C/H/S =3D 65536/16/255) (limit of CHS addressing) 137.4389GB (LBA mode) (limit of 28-bit LBA addressing) Notes: 1GB =3D 10^9 bytes. All sizes are rounded down. The sector size= is assumed to be 512. Bruce To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message ------- End of Forwarded Message Best regards, Salvo N.B. myjokingdoamin =3D=3D=3D> neomedia.it to e-mail to me. ******************************* * * * Windows: brain-dead limits * * BeOS: limited apps * * Linux: unlimited (mindset) * * FreeBSD: no limits * * * ******************************* To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message