Re: big IBM harddisk

[Lars Knudsen <gandalf@revicon.com>]

virtanen wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, nico de haer wrote:
> 
> > > Some more info.....
> > >
> > > 1) Make sure your system boots using your 1 Gb hdd
> > > 2) Check what your kernel says about hdd's (dmesg is your friend)
> > > 3) Once you have found it use (c)fdisk to create partitions, and add
> > > filesystems using the normal tools
> > > 4) mount em somewhere
> > >
> > > This *should* work for all. One tip to prevent bios crap:
> > > 1) connect the 1 Gb and CDROM to your mainboard
> > > 2) power-on and go to bios, do autodetect
> > > 3) check that the Secondary master and slave are set to NONE
> > > 4) save settings
> > > 5) power down
> > > 6) connect the Big One as Secondary Master
> > > 7) Power On (DO NOT GO TO BIOS TO TELL IT ABOUT THE BIG ONE)
> > > This way you leave all the work that needs to be done to your kernel.
> > > If i try to autodetect my IBM the Abit stops responding......
> 
> I tried, but if I connect my IBM, the machine doesn't boot at all...
> 
Sorry for breaking netiquette by jumping into the middle of a thread but
here goes...

Several months ago I bought a 46GB IBM disk that I tried to install in a
PC with the same result you are having. The machine did not boot - in
fact
the BIOS always blocks early in the boot process, even before trying to
boot
from the floppy. 

I tried every setting I could think of, including setting "NONE" for all
four IDE-devices in the BIOS. No luck, just a hung BIOS.

I looked for a BIOS upgrade but none was available. I ended up putting
the
disk in another PC and nfs mounting it but this is obviously not a
solution
if you only have one PC or do not have a network.

So why this rant ? Partly to tell you that you are probably not just
looking
for a simple little mistake in your setup - it might just be impossible
to
get it working with the hardware you have and partly to suggest a few 
possible solutions...

Have you checked if a BIOS upgrade is available ? (this has probably
been 
suggested earlier in the thread)

Have you checked the Linux Bios project to see if they have a bios for
your
motherboard ? 

Have you tried putting the disk on the secondary ide interface and
disabling
the secondary ide interface in the bios ? I know it sounds like a stupid
thing
to do, but linux does not use the bios very much and disabling the ide 
interface might bypass the disk check that the BIOS seem to perform even
when
told not to, while there is still a chance that Linux can see the disk.

Happy hacking,

\Gandalf