Re: [tlug] Large Disk on Old Hardware.

["Greg Thomson " <gregt@example.com>]

Thank you all for your quick and informative posts.

I feel I can now proceed with installation on the new hard disk confident  
that it will go well.

I also received this off list from Norman Diamond and am including it in  
this threat for completeness.

Greg. :-)


If your BIOS is old enough (maybe 1998 or earlier) then the BIOS itself  
will
only be able to read the first 7.8GB of the hard drive.  So you have to  
make
sure that your bootloader is within the first 7.8GB.  Such machines are
still capable of running Linux, though video won't be modern and sound
likely won't work.

Create a small first partition which could be C: for Monopolyware or
/dev/hda1 for Linux.  If you're going to dual boot then create a small  
first
partition C: and a small second partition /dev/hda2.  Make sure that all of
these fit within the first 7.8GB.  Sometimes I make these about 100MB each,
sometimes about 500MB each, depending on how I'm feeling at the time.

Create an extended partition for the rest of the disk.

Install any Monopolyware products into logical drives in the extended
partition, such as D: or E: etc.  It will automatically install its boot
loader onto C:.

Install Linux itself, and user files and swap partition and all other Linux
partitions, into logical drives (logical partitions) in the extended
partition.  Install grub into the small partition /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2 as
mentioned above.

If you install lilo instead of grub then it's more difficult.  Your small  
/dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2 will have to be large enough to hold the entire  
Linux kernel because lilo will depend on the BIOS to read the entire  
kernel.  You might have to make that your / filesystem, in which case it  
will have to be big enough to include /tmp and some other stuff.