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

[Nerius Landys]

> 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).
>
> Also I no longer have hardware to test this on but if it is a BIOS
> problem I believe if you could put the hard disk in a newer machine for
> the install it would then boot in the older machine as FreeBSD accesses
> the disk directly, not through the BIOS.
>
> When he puts that big hard drive back in the old computer, he still won't
be able to boot because to boot the BIOS reads the MBR on the hard disk and
passes control to that program.  If BIOS can't recognize the disk, there is
no possibility of booting.  The initial stages of booting happen based on
data on the hard disk.  This is a chicken and egg problem.  It boils down to
the fact that BIOS needs to recognize the hard disk to be able to boot it.