formatting disk for FreeBSD : Detecting IDE Primary Master ... [Press F4 to skip]

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Chris
> Whitehouse
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 5:14 PM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: formatting disk for FreeBSD : Detecting IDE Primary Master
> ... [Press F4 to skip]
> 
> 
> Nerius Landys wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > The earler comment about the disk being too big might be the 
> issue.  Update
> > the motherboard's BIOS to the latest revision.  You may have to do some
> > digging to find this for an old motherboard.  Tell us if that helps.
> > _______________________________________________
> 
> Some motherboards had an upper limit on hard disk size which I think was
> 32gb. Some drives have a jumper to limit the apparent size to 32gb (if
> that was the size).
> 

There have been lots of different limits through the years.  The 32GB
limit was an Award bios thing.  You can read about them here:

http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

What the original poster needs to do is go and buy a used Promise
or other UDMA controller card, insert the card in his PC, turn off the
disk controller in BIOS, and use his 80GB disk.

Ted