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Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:17:49 -0300
From: Fernan Aguero <fernan@iib.unsam.edu.ar>
To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
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Subject: maximum hard drive capacity supported?
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Hi!

I have a box built on a Soyo 6VBA133 motherboard. BIOS is
from Award, v4.51PG and the identifier from Soyo is
VBA-2BAB.

Upon trying to buy a new hard drive (80 GB) I was asked
about the capabilities of my system, and I just thought that
these were needed to tell what kind the IDE (ATA)
capabilities. However, the vendor said that depending on the
BIOS the system might not be able to recognize a large disk.

I'm now confused on the extent to which FreeBSD uses or
relies on the BIOS. I know that for PnP Windows does rely on
the BIOS, and it seems to me that FreeBSD does not. 

With respect to this particular issue (max hard drive
capacity supported): is the BIOS limiting here?

Thanks in advance for the information,

Fernan

PS: please CC me since I'm not subscribed to the list (yet)

PS2: I have not been able to find what is the maximum hard
drive capacity supported by my combination of mother and
BIOS. If some of you know where to find this, I'll very much
appreciate it if you can give me some clue.

-- 
Fernan Aguero -  fernan at iib.unsam.edu.ar
Phone: +54 11 4580-7255/7 ext 310, Fax: +54 11 4752-9639
Check http://genoma.unsam.edu.ar/~fernan for more info.