[NTLUG:Discuss] Hard Disk Size

[TJ Bell]

vinod choyi wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I bought a new hard disk(13 Gb) recently and wanted to
> install SuSE/Caldera. When I tried to partition the
> hard disk to my surprise it just shows 7 Gb. Could the
> problem be with my bios. And if so, how could I solve
> the problem because the customer service at maxtor
> told me that they did know how I could do it on Linux,
> but they had solutions for Win 95/98..
> I have never installed Linux before.
> 
> regards and thanks
> 
> vinod

It is quite possible that your BIOS doesn't recognize a drive larger
than 7 GB, so it sees it as just that.  See if there's a flash update
for it.  If not, you can either use Maxtor's overlay software to trick
your BIOS into seeing the whole thing.  It installs into the MBR of the
drive.  The software will then partition the drive and format it as DOS
FAT16 or FAT32 -- BUT, after you restart, you can repartition and format
it as ext2 for linux.  The only bad thing about having the overlay
installed is that it makes it more cumbersome to boot off of a
floppy...you have to let the overlay load first, then hit a key sequence
before it boots off of the Hard Drive, then put in the floppy you wish
to boot from.

If you don't have the overlay software, email me privately and I'll send
you an image of the disk.  (tjbell at usa.net)  I've done this on countless
older machines at work when installing hard drives in them.

-- 
TJ Bell -aka- MudPoet
cat tjbexx at usa.yz | tr xyz let
http://tjbell.dhs.org