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Question about add-on U-ATA/133 controller
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6672		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  rkhanso [ Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Question about add-on U-ATA/133 controller
I did have a working Knoppmyth system but for reasons I won't get into, I need to re-install Knoppmyth....but after upgrading some hardware.

The computer is an old Compaq Deskpro P-450 with 256MB RAM and a PVR-350 card, 160GB Hard Drive and NO DVD-ROM. It's PCI 1 compliant, not PCI 2. I found this out after trying to add a wireless PCI card to it - it wouldn't even boot. I've searched Compaq's website for BIOS upgrades, but can't find anything. I guess they think I should buy one of their new computers and junk this old one.

I had Knoppmyth running fine on that system, but I know the BIOS didn't see the entire 160GB drive (it saw 6.4GB, I think), although Knoppmyth did see the entire drive (I think) - it was nearly 160GB, if not the whole thing.

I just bought a 300GB drive and a DVD-RW drive and want to add them in. My question(s)....do I need to buy an add-on U-ATA/133 controller card to enable Knoppmyth to see then entire 460GB of drive space I have? If I need a card, do I have to watch out what brand to get? If I don't need a card, are there any other things I need to do to be able to use the entire 460GB?

I obviously plan on using LVM by following the LVM How-To on the Wiki.

Not looking forward to the pain of getting everything working again, but am looking forward to having DVD playing capability and additional storage...

Thanks for any help you can give.
Author:  rkhanso [ Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:26 pm ]
Post subject: 
My current web backend reports:
Code:
Disk Usage:
Total Space: 423,967 MB
Space Used: 8,606 MB
Space Free: 415,361 MB
I have a 160GB and a 300GB drive installed. Is the best I can do without the add-on U-ATA/133 card? The BIOS only sees a little over 6GB for each drive.

So it looks like when I wipe out the drives and re-install KnoppMyth, I may not need the extra drive controller card?
Author:  Mephi [ Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:25 am ]
Post subject: 
There are two things to remember when looking at drive sizes.

The first is that manufacturers use 1000 Bytes to represent a Kilobyte, so they're out by a small chunk when looking at the full drive size.

The second is that you'll loose some of the drive's size when it's formatted, as it needs the space for the file system.

Mephi
Author:  rkhanso [ Sun Oct 30, 2005 5:33 am ]
Post subject: 
So I don't need the add-on PCI U-ATA/133 controller card?

I did a:
Code:
root@pvr:~# df -a -H
Filesystem             Size   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1              3.7G   1.6G   2.0G  45% /
none                      0      0      0   -  /proc
/dev/hda3               11G    25k    11G   1% /cache
/dev/vg/myth           445G   9.1G   436G   3% /myth
sysfs                     0      0      0   -  /sys
usbfs                     0      0      0   -  /proc/bus/usb
and see it does add up right at 460GB (using 1000-Byte measurements)
Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Oct 30, 2005 9:18 am ]
Post subject: 
Looks to me like you are getting access to everything.

As an FYI, I am using a PCI/IDE add on card that came with my maxtor disk drive. I believe it is a rebranded "Promise" card. It works perfectly and I did not need to make any O/S configuration changes.

Marc
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