From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 3 13:11:04 2010 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 B994B10658AA for ; Fri, 3 Sep 2010 13:11:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from mail8.sea5.speakeasy.net (mail8.sea5.speakeasy.net [69.17.117.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 93D918FC1C for ; Fri, 3 Sep 2010 13:11:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 13 invoked from network); 3 Sep 2010 13:11:04 -0000 Received: from dsl092-078-145.bos1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO be-well.ilk.org) ([66.92.78.145]) (envelope-sender ) by mail8.sea5.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 3 Sep 2010 13:11:04 -0000 Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147) id 983835084D; Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:11:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Lowell Gilbert To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4c80bc3d.bsLwHSU5+KZyQFD6%perryh@pluto.rain.com> Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:11:02 -0400 In-Reply-To: <4c80bc3d.bsLwHSU5+KZyQFD6%perryh@pluto.rain.com> (perryh@pluto.rain.com's message of "Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:13:33 -0700") Message-ID: <44mxrzvuop.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Re: two ata-related problems X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:11:04 -0000 perryh@pluto.rain.com writes: > Two questions about installing FreeBSD 8.1 on a Dell Precision 420 > (yes, I know it's old): I have a similar machine running as a lab tool. > 1. Should FreeBSD 8.1 be able to recognize a 100MB ATAPI Zip drive? > I'm not finding it in the dmesg, although BIOS Setup recognizes > it. (It and a CDROM are on the secondary IDE channel; I've tried > with each of them as master and either way the CD is recognized > but the Zip is not.) The default kernel definitely won't, but with the vpo device enabled, it probably will. There's a kernel module for that, so you can try "kldload vpo". > 2. It currently has the original A01 BIOS. I'm going to have to > update that, because it doesn't recognize the 320GB drive I've > added as a new boot drive. With the 320GB installed as unit 0 > (master) on the primary IDE channel, the A01 BIOS won't even > recognize the previously-working 40GB drive which is now unit 1; > so the BIOS disables that channel entirely keeping FreeBSD from > seeing those drives either. > > A BIOS upgrade should be straightforward, but while Googling > I ran into a posting where someone apparently had a lot of > trouble with a BIOS upgrade for one of these of boxes. Thus > the question: Has anyone here had any experience, either good > or bad, with running FreeBSD on one of these with an upgraded > BIOS? If so, which version? I found A06, A07, A10, A11, and > A13 on Dell's FTP site. A01 gave me a bunch of problems, although I don't really remember the details (it was more than five years ago!) at this point. BIOS upgrades were no problem at all. I stopped upgrading the BIOS once everything worked -- at least, everything I noticed. Good luck.