From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 27 07:34:05 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C444B16A417 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:34:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: from rv-out-0910.google.com (rv-out-0910.google.com [209.85.198.188]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 923AF13C461 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:34:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: by rv-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id l15so1224068rvb.43 for ; Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:34:04 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=KOi3CC/kmiyAMoN4Cj1XR2bx8YYpbewnxTKTcV7vA64=; b=rPbLGEfQI0W5ucl5qEm0ZzpUSH9qGCTD1FApGYAmggVKymwflN9aU9Idl8hhMN19+NSa53a+ZHm6FIK1Rufp8YD2oF8w+ZBt8LtizfeMJHYfUyq+zcabujIqZq5/MXEYwQg1VQI0AbHGDJL3Ksikd2Av/qSW6mRPKL3dUBpuWXQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=em6JnyDg7JQKkAijP8FFkE7dOqpQ0QVTXQ+oLDmbKB4FS3MsfvGQsRQsjXpAh66qPAi2zNWYKepUCpygRjGrhEvnoXlb11YGuIpEKuOtz43Cb2ETwf9L7xowX4zkVmNZSlnu0dbm16C3JP07KWzUO31paLTyYqkJ0jqvvQ21fqQ= Received: by 10.141.190.9 with SMTP id s9mr2609249rvp.125.1201419243762; Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:34:03 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.141.49.19 with HTTP; Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:34:03 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:34:03 -0600 From: "illoai@gmail.com" To: "Chris Whitehouse" In-Reply-To: <479A896C.2010001@onetel.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20080125224807.233a2a14@sparrow> <560f92640801251437r3fd38d83xc7ec07841642fa05@mail.gmail.com> <20080125234146.083449bd@sparrow> <560f92640801251505q39b178feh6aa51424c0dff13c@mail.gmail.com> <479A896C.2010001@onetel.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: formatting disk for FreeBSD : Detecting IDE Primary Master ... [Press F4 to skip] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:34:05 -0000 On 25/01/2008, Chris Whitehouse wrote: > Nerius Landys wrote: > > > > > > The earler comment about the disk being too big might be the issue. Update > > the motherboard's BIOS to the latest revision. You may have to do some > > digging to find this for an old motherboard. Tell us if that helps. > > _______________________________________________ > > Some motherboards had an upper limit on hard disk size which I think was > 32gb. Some drives have a jumper to limit the apparent size to 32gb (if > that was the size). > > Also I no longer have hardware to test this on but if it is a BIOS > problem I believe if you could put the hard disk in a newer machine for > the install it would then boot in the older machine as FreeBSD accesses > the disk directly, not through the BIOS. Anecdotally, I have an old hp e-server that will not see IDE drives larger than something like 8G. I let the bios autodetect to the wrong value, and it booted just fine and once FreBSD was running the whole 20G drive was perfectly visible and functional. In any case, I suppose the OP could just use a floppy boot disk, like slackware's: http://slackware.mirrors.easynews.com/linux/slackware/slackware/isolinux/sbootmgr/ http://tinyurl.com/2evgaa Which should bypass any (most) moronic bioses. -- --