Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:46:28 -0800 (PST)
From: David Chien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] 110 HD Confusion (Win98SE)
Re: [LIB] 110 HD upgrade??
Philip Nienhuis
Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:35:12 -0800
Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:33:50 +0100
From: Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] 110 HD upgrade??
hello Tony,
Tony Oresteen wrote:
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 01:40:51 -0500
From: "Tony Oresteen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
^^^^^^^ I've hidden your e-mail address.
Now that I noted this...:
Apparently the server doen't hide e-mail addresses. Bad thing, as this
is a good opportunity for e-mail address harvesters.... :-(
(The list archives are publicly accessible)
Subject: Re: [LIB] 110 HD upgrade??
Phil,
...Philip :-) (sorry)
With the 70CT and the 100CT, you do need an overlay to get past 8 gigs.
On the contrary, I have never used an overlay in my L110 and yet had
full use of 15, 40 & 60 GB hard disks in my Lib.
Admittedly you must get your HDs partitioned somehow. But even in a
Lib100/110 an overlay is not necessarily needed at that stage.
Just tonight I set up a 10 gig drive for my new Libby 70CT. I didn't use
FDISK I used Partition Magic 8.0. It showed the drive as 8 gig drive when I
partitioned it in the Libby. PM8 uses the Libby BIOS to get the drive info.
The thread you started and that I replied to was about L110 upgrades,
not about L70 upgrades. I'll only refer to L100/L110, as I know little
about the L50/70 BIOS.
ISTR that the Lib50/70 BIOS has no int13 extensions implemented...
right? anyone?
The stanza "uses the BIOS" points to the issue at hand.
I'll gladly explain again (I'll promise to limit the recurrence time of
my explanation to once every 1-2 years or so).
OK, here we go:
The L100/110 BIOS (don't know about L50/70) does have all int13
extensions implemented for access > 8 GB. As a consequence you simply do
NOT need an overlay - for daily use that is. Not even for DOS.
But... there's a bug in the one little BIOS function which returns
drive size. That function is only used at partition time, doubtlessly
also at hibernation time. It apparently still uses CHS translation.
Now, DOS FDISK and older versions of PM always ask the BIOS for drive
size and get a wrong answer from the Libretto.
Modern OS-es (Win2K, Linux, even OS/2) ask the drive itself and get a
good answer.
That's why I suggest to avoid DOS FDISK or PM8 for partitioning; they
use a wrong answer.
And once again: this problem only plays a role at partitioning &
hibernation time. Once a partitioning scheme incl. areas > 8 GB has been
set up, this whole issue is irrelevant.
Taking the drive out and putting it in a USB external case I attached it to
my XP desktop. Sure enough Drive management shows 1.8 gig unallocated space.
That include the drive memory swap area that the Libby uses. Do not try to use
this area! When the Libby sleeps it copies the contents of RAM at the 8 gig
boundry and overwrites anything that is there.
Indeed, in the L100/100 the hibernation area is another, related problem.
On my Lib it extends up to cyl. 1026, i.e. beyond the 1024 cyl (=8.3 or
so GB) limit). Luckily, hibernation uses int13 extensions (otherwise it
can't extend beyond 1024 cyls), so it is a contiguous area of RAM size +
video size + some BIOS data blocks. On my Lib110 I have 71 MiB
reserved, and as linux /boot is immediately beyond it and I never
experienced hibernation or linux problems, I know this is sufficient.
BTW The fact that the hibernation area extends beyond 1024 cyls. while
the start is based on CHS calculations is intriguing (but I've never
bothered to do the arithmetic so it might be logical too).
Summing up the technical issues:
1. Only if you want:
- to partition your new > 8GB hard disk INSIDE your Libretto,
AND
- you insist in using DOS FDISK (BTW the same as in Win98x) or PM8,
ONLY THEN you need an overlay (or LDS100CT.exe for disks < 32 GB, see
URL below).
2. In ALL other cases, including:
- daily access to partitions beyond 8 GB inside the Libretto,
AND/OR
- partitioning outside the Libretto,
AND/OR
- using anything else for partitioning than DOS FDISK or PM8,
an overlay is overkill (as it merely duplicates available functionality)
and it won't solve the hibernation area problem either.
>From a practical perspective, an overlay is an easy (but IMO dirty)
fix. Sure it works.... (but NOT for the hibernation!)
And a little warning: overlays *can* give trouble:
(1) As soon as you invoke other OSes that do not need overlays and may
get confused (that's why you must always "pre-boot" into the overlay
before booting your OS). And as outlined above, even native DOS is in
this category, it needs no overlay to access data > 8 GB.....
(2) If you move your overlayed HD into another PC as second HD or
external HD. Because then the overlay won't have a chance to get
initialized; consequence is that you might not be able to access the
data on that disk anymore.
Modern disk access routines may be able to cope with the second issue,
so it may not be a real problem anymore.
BTW Most of my L110 info comes from someone who has painstakingly
scrutinized through all drive info blocks set up by the BIOS. Detailed
info is currently here at this URL:
http://bockey.teamos2trier.de/MB_DOS/LDS100CT.HTM
Philip
adorable toshiba libretto
The latest news and information for the Toshiba Libretto owner.
http://www.silverace.com/libretto/
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