On Saturday, December 18, 2010 10:37:47 pm Allen wrote: > On Sat, 2010-12-18 at 21:15 -0500, Chris Knadle wrote: > > > I have some experience with this since my two desktop PCs are year 2000 > > > PIII's (with PATA HDDs). > > > > > > The specific BIOS issue is 48-bit LBA support. The limitation applies > > > to the boot sector, which must reside within the limit. Other than > > > that, I believe a larger HDD is OK. > > > > That doesn't sound right. The specific problem I've seen is that the > > hard disk isn't seen *at all* by the BIOS if it's too large. Being an > > LBA problem could be, but the limit being on where the boot sector > > doesn't, because IIRC when I ran into this even having a /boot partition > > early on the disk still didn't allow the disk to show up in the BIOS, > > thus it couldn't be booted. > > > > With any luck the specs for the T23 are available to find out > > specifically what the hard disk size limit is for it. > > In the past, I've done reading on HDD size limitations. Sources: 1. > Upgrading and Repairing PCs 2. Multiboot configuration Handbook. > > The only issue I recall reading about with HDD size limits is the 48-bit > LBA issue. But I don't question that you have observed another issue.
Okay, I've some more looking -- I think the 48-bit LBA issue is not related to the particular problem I'm concerned about. The 48-bit LBA limitation is 128 GiB (137 GB) and relates to a software level problem, and what I'm concerned about is what I believe is a *hardware* limitation related to chipset that I've run into on PIII desktop hardware. http://www.datarecovery.com.sg/data_recovery/large_disk_size_120gb_barrier_for_windows.htm One thing to note in the page above however is that the Intel i830M chipset is listed, which is what is used by the Thinkpad T23. I've been trying to find out what the 830M chipset's disk size limit is, but I haven't found it. > I'd just like to add that whatever the BIOS issue is, there might be a > BIOS upgrade available for it that addresses the issue. If the OP > doesn't have the latest BIOS version, he might want to check for > updates. The latest T23 BIOS appears to be version 1.20 released on Halloween in 2006: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-39366.html None of the change notes for the BIOS revisions discuss 48-bit LBA of updates for hard disk size limitations. -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Jan 5 - Building a Community Site with Drupal Feb 2 - Zimbra Mar 2 - MHVLUG 8th Anniversary - Show and Tell
