110 lines
4.1 KiB
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110 lines
4.1 KiB
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<TITLE>LILO mini-HOWTO: Accessing Huge Disks When the BIOS Can't </TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="s7">7.</A> <A HREF="LILO.html#toc7">Accessing Huge Disks When the BIOS Can't </A></H2>
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<P><EM>Notice: 1GB is "Huge"? Well, once upon a time...</EM></P>
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<P>The system in my office has a 1GB IDE drive. The BIOS can only see
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the first 504 MB of the IDE. (Where MB means 2**10 bytes, not 10**6
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bytes.) So I have MS-DOS on a 350 MB partition <CODE>/dev/hda1</CODE> and
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my Linux root on a 120 MB partition <CODE>/dev/hda2</CODE>.</P>
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<P><EM>Hauke Laging (hauke@laging.de) and Bob Hall (bhall@hallfire.org)
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have noticed a small mistake above, so they've suggested a MB to be
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2**20 bytes rather than 2**10 bytes. Thanks for correction. In
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addition, Hauke would like to learn more about what he called,
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"character codes on LILO startup, when LILO dies with LI, LI-, LIL-
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or whatever". I'd appreciate a contribution related to this issue or
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a valid web link to that.</EM></P>
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<P>Here it is (a contribution by Zohar Stolar, zohar@numericable.fr):</P>
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<P><B>B. LILO boot error codes</B></P>
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<P>
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<A HREF="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html">http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html</A></P>
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<P>Thanks for link. </P>
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<P>MS-DOS was unable to install itself correctly when the drive was
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fresh. Novell DOS 7 had the same problem. Luckily for me, "Options
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by IBM" forgot to put the "OnTrack" diskette in the box with the
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drive. The drive was supposed to come with a product called "OnTrack
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Disk Manager." If you only have MSDOS, I guess you have to use it.</P>
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<P>So I made a partition table with Linux' fdisk. MSDOS-6.2 refused to
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install itself in <CODE>/dev/hda1</CODE>. It said something like ``this
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release of MS-DOS is for new installations. Your computer already has
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MS-DOS so you need to get an upgrade release from your dealer.''
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Actually, the disk was brand new.</P>
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<P>What a crock! So I ran Linux' fdisk again and deleted partition 1
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from the table. This satisfied MS-DOS 6.2 which proceeded to create
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the exact same partition 1 I had just deleted and installed itself.
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MS-DOS 6.2 wrote its Master Boot Record on the drive, but it couldn't
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boot.</P>
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<P>Luckily I had a Slackware kernel on floppy (made by the Slackware
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installation program "setup"), so I booted Linux and wrote Lilo over
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MS-DOS' broken MBR. This works. Here is the <CODE>/etc/lilo.conf</CODE>
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file I used:</P>
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<P>
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<PRE>
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boot = /dev/hda
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map = /lilo-map
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delay = 100
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ramdisk = 0 # Turns off ramdisk in Slackware kernel
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timeout = 100
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prompt
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disk = /dev/hda # BIOS only sees first 500 MB.
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bios = 0x80 # specifies the first IDE.
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sectors = 63 # get the numbers from your drive's docs.
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heads = 16
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cylinders = 2100
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image = /vmlinuz
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append = "hd=2100,16,63"
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root = /dev/hda2
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label = linux
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read-only
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vga = extended
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other = /dev/hda1
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label = msdos
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table = /dev/hda
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loader = /boot/chain.b
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</PRE>
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</P>
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<P>After I installed these systems, I verified that the partition
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containing the zImage, boot.b, map, chain.b, and message files can use
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an msdos file system, as long as it is not "stackered" or
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"doublespaced." So I could have made the DOS partition on
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<CODE>/dev/hda1</CODE> 500 MB.</P>
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<P>I have also learned that "OnTrack" would have written a partition
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table starting a few dozen bytes into the drive, instead of at the
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beginning, and it is possible to hack the Linux IDE driver to work
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around this problem. But installing would have been impossible with
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the precompiled Slackware kernel. Eventually, IBM sent me an
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"OnTrack" diskette. I called OnTrack's technical support. They told
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me Linux is broken because Linux doesn't use BIOS. I gave their
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diskette away.</P>
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