Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:53:26 +0200 From: Jan Henrik Sylvester <me@janh.de> To: Bob Johnson <fbsdlists@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 250GB hd: Can FreeBSD use >137GB (bios) as Linux or Windows do? Message-ID: <48922646.7030902@janh.de> In-Reply-To: <54db43990807311214g6d6bc1bbm92bf660b10bfbb18@mail.gmail.com> References: <29825939.312031217523061419.JavaMail.servlet@kundenserver> <54db43990807311214g6d6bc1bbm92bf660b10bfbb18@mail.gmail.com>
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I guess I should have put it more concise as some important details were lost in the middle of the background story. --- The important part: ---> If I boot the FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE livefs CD, I have my 232GB hd limited to 128GB. (According to dmesg and some dd writing tests.) If I boot the dynamic drive overlay MBR that changes the INT13 bios routines and let it boot the livefs CD, FreeBSD can access all 232GB. These two cases happen with the same MBR and the same content on the drive. <--- (Important part ending) --- From my limited understanding: This cannot be about the FreeBSD installation transfered by firewire, since it is long gone. This cannot be about the FreeBSD MBR, since it is not involved. This is not about the partition table, since it is the same. Doing the same with a Linux live CD (Knoppix), I can access the whole drive in both cases. Windows reports 232GB, too, but according to this (German) posting http://www.acer-userforum.de/thread.php?postid=40207 writing above 128GB will wrap around for the 855GME chipset driver (I have 855PM). The posting claims ddo would solve it, which I cannot understand, if the Windows driver ignores the bios information. (The posting is about Acer Travelmate 661. I got the 800 from the same time.) My laptop is more than five years old and I have got the latest bios for years, apparently without 48bit LBA. I am kind of lost. I cannot understand the disassembled MBR and even if I could, I do not think I would want to create my own boot manager / INT13 handler. I guess reading FreeBSD source code would be next... but I am not very confident there, either. The alternative is that my understanding of the problem is totally wrong. Thanks for more helping to think through this mess of information I got during the last day. Cheers, Jan Henrik
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