[SGVLUG] Bad memory in Pentium I, HD too large, PC power use

[David Lawyer]

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> David Lawyer <dave at lafn.org> writes:
> 
> > Re the HD too large problem, I decided to upgrade my hard drive and
> > bought a used 40 GB HD to replace a bad 3 MB HD which sometimes causes
> > the power supply shutdown.  My MB (ATC 5000 from 1999) can't recognize
> > it and I found complaints about this on the Internet.  Even though the
> > BIOS has LBA for the HD, supposedly able to access 4 TB of disk,  40
> > GB is too much for it!   On the Internet, they said that even flashing
> > the BIOS with an update fails to fix this problem.
> 
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 04:16:07PM -0700, John E. Kreznar wrote:
> Linux may recognize the 40 GB even if the BIOS doesn't.  Test by
> booting some "live" linux such as Knoppix or tomsrtbt.  If so, leave
> the 3 MB in there to boot from, but run from the 40 GB.  After booting
> you can put the 3 MB to sleep with hdparm -Y, saving power.  I do
> something like this routinely on an old box that doesn't recognize
> large drives.

I know this but I wanted to use it as a backup that will be bootable.
I have 2 HD's in my PC with the old program cpbk keeping the drives in
sync (more or less --keeping free software in sync is low priority
except for config files).  If one HD fails, the other one needs to boot.
So the 40 GB needed to be able to boot and I don't want to have to get a
new PC should a drive fail.  But I bought a couple of 8 GB drives from
an ad on Craigslist that will work in this PC for $5 each so all is OK.

			David Lawyer