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> > The problem was fixed by starting PQMAGIC 8.0 (I had used 5.0 the first
> > time and then BL3 fdisk) which said the extended partition crossed the
> > 1024 cylinder boundary, which would cause problems, and changed it to
> > ExtendedX partition, and now all the DOS partitions work -
> > hda1 - FAT32 primary 500MB
> > hda5 - FAT32 logical 200MB  (or 500 before)
> > hda6 - Fat32 logical 300MB   (or 500 before)
> > hda7 - ext2 logical (and more of these)

The problem recurred (fourth time) and is probably  physical.

> As far as I know, BL3 uses only primary partitions.
/dev/hda1 through hda9 but I think it needs to boot from a primary 
partition because it was set up that way.

> > The extended partition contains all the logical partitions and crosses
> > the 1024 cylinder boundary (the same one that BL3 lilo cannot handle
> > unless you copy boot.b and the kernel to the first 1024 cylinders).
>
> In DOS it is costumary to make a lot of logical partitions to handle a HD
> that cannot be fully used by the Pc's BIOS.
> This means if one has a 20gb HD but the system "sees" only 4gb for example,
> someone needs to make a 4gb primary partition and 4 (or more) extended or
> logical partitions up-to-4gb each.

I don't want 25GB partitions even in linux.  They take longer to check.
I put several operating systems on one drive  - DOS, BL3, BL2.

> PC BIOSes provide booting directly from IDE0, the first floppy driver,
> CD/DVD rom,  or a master HD on IDE1, and even a pendrive on USB, but not
> from a SLAVE HD, whatever the IDE can be.

Some newer computers allow booting from hdd-0 hdd-1 hdd-2 hdd-3.  I can 
switch between booting XP and DOS from slave (hdd-1) and master (hdd-0).
LS120 ZIP100 boot too.

> Linux allows redirecting the boot after booting  from a "legal" device.
With loadlin?  Lilo?

> > I can try it as a slave, with DOS on a 2GB master, but that is said to
> > slow down the larger drive.
>
> It really slows down if the two HDs are of different architectures and
> installed on the same IDE.

2GB UDMA-2 and 100GB UDMA-6 on one cable both ran at normal speeds (the 
board can do UDMA-5 in linux with correct driver, and UDMA-4 in DOS).
But the 100GB as slave would not boot linux.  Linux stopped and complained 
it could not find the partition it was on.  As master, it worked fine (I 
edited fstab between a and b).

> Normally they are. The system does not assume a medium, but the lower speed.

On this newer (2003) computer the faster drive did not slow down.  I 
tested with hdparm and spinrite.  File transfer between them would of 
course be at the slower speed.

> It really doesn't concern to the size itself, but to the architecture.
> But you can try it as follows:
>
> Master on IDE0
> CD drive (master) on IDE1
> HD (slave)  on IDE1
My 100GB won't work as slave.  At least not on IDE0.
The drive was given to me as secondary slave (with XP booting from primary 
slave - the jumpers were all mixed up, one as CS, one on some jumper that 
was not even listed.)

> This way it's supposed not to slow down the CD neither the HDs.
I will live with a floppy disk boot for a while and then maybe try this as 
hdc with a different hda that boots.  I don't know if the CD would slow 
down the hard drive.

> Teixeira
>
> > Sindi
>
>
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org