Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:11:02 -0400 From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: two ata-related problems Message-ID: <44mxrzvuop.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> In-Reply-To: <4c80bc3d.bsLwHSU5%2BKZyQFD6%perryh@pluto.rain.com> (perryh@pluto.rain.com's message of "Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:13:33 -0700") References: <4c80bc3d.bsLwHSU5%2BKZyQFD6%perryh@pluto.rain.com>
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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.
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