Re: large drives with linux / LBA

[Sten Anderson <sten@bergsoe.k-net.dk>]

rob <goodwin@cuug.ab.ca> writes:

> Because the motherboard is an old VESA 
> thing (as is the IDE controller) I am worried that it's BIOS won't support 
> LBA.  if this is the case will it be a problem?  is there something that i 
> can do to get around this?  am i going to have to upgrade the motherboard 
> to something newer? 

Linux doesn't have a problem with this setup. Linux doesn't use BIOS
functions, thus Linux can easily access the entire drive. Lilo - the
bootloader - might have problems. Lilo uses BIOS functions to load the 
kernel from the disk, thus the kernel must reside on a physical
location on the disk that is reachable by BIOS functions, i.e. within
the first N sectors (N=1024 IIRC). This is easily obtained by
partitioning the disk and putting the kernel on the first
partition. The rest of the Linux installation can reside anywhere on
the disk.

- Sten Anderson

  


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