2004 iso 4.9 GB?

On 6/26/20 1:33 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

[snip]

I thought the label on the hard disk has a CHS table you used to
configure the BIOS to match.

My first hard drive (30MB RLL) required setting CHS limits in the BIOS,
and also entering a defect list into the low-level format program (ROM
on the controller card, accessed at 0C000:0000.

Of course, you have to disassemble enough
to see or remove the hard disk to read the label on it. CHS hit a
barrier at 528 MB and required translation which hit another barrier at
8.4 GB.

Originally, 3 byte values for Cylinder, Head, Sector.

Hard drives had more cylinders so the high 2 bits in "sector" were used
as C bits 8-9 (allowing 528MB). "sectors" were limited to 63.

Since PC drives didn't have more than 16 heads, the high 4 bits could be
used for C bits 10-13 (allowing 8.4GB).

This did not require translation as long as there really were 63
sectors, but there usually weren't.

I remember having to install kernel-mode translators to get the
full capacity of the HDDs back then.

I have one old machine (Pentiun-166) that doesn't support LBA, limiting
drives to 8.4GB. Such a translator will NOT help because a larger drive
will not pass POST.

Around 1994, Phoenix came out with
LBA mode at the BIOS level. LBA mode was supported by ATA-1 back in
1986, but the BIOS makers didn't support it until years later.

I remember something about a 32GB limit, and do know about the 128GB limit.

That's half a life ago for me, and I used to drink a hell of a lot more
back then, so I probably burned out those memory cells or memory even
back then was fuzzy.



--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is your god-given right to destroy any man or woman calling
themselves doctors who willingly slaughter innocent children." [Keith
Tucci, Exec. Dir, Operation Rescue]

On 2020-06-27 13:29, Mark Lloyd wrote:
IÂ*rememberÂ*somethingÂ*aboutÂ*aÂ*32GBÂ*limit,Â*an dÂ*doÂ*knowÂ*aboutÂ*theÂ*128GBÂ*limit.

I remember very vaguely when I got hard drives
with a jumper on them to limit the size the bois saw.
Don't remember anything else about them though.

On 27/06/2020 22.29, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 6/26/20 1:33 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

[snip]

I thought the label on the hard disk has a CHS table you used to
configure the BIOS to match.

My first hard drive (30MB RLL) required setting CHS limits in the BIOS,
and also entering a defect list into the low-level format program (ROM
on the controller card, accessed at 0C000:0000.

Â*Of course, you have to disassemble enough
to see or remove the hard disk to read the label on it.Â* CHS hit a
barrier at 528 MB and required translation which hit another barrier at
8.4 GB.

Originally, 3 byte values for Cylinder, Head, Sector.

Hard drives had more cylinders so the high 2 bits in "sector" were used
as C bits 8-9 (allowing 528MB). "sectors" were limited to 63.

Since PC drives didn't have more than 16 heads, the high 4 bits could be
used for C bits 10-13 (allowing 8.4GB).

This did not require translation as long as there really were 63
sectors, but there usually weren't.

I remember having to install kernel-mode translators to get the
full capacity of the HDDs back then.

I have one old machine (Pentiun-166) that doesn't support LBA, limiting
drives to 8.4GB. Such a translator will NOT help because a larger drive
will not pass POST.


I think that you could use a small partition at the start of the hard
disk, that would boot the machine, and then the operating system could
take over and access beyond the BIOS limits. This trick was used with
Linux - but I do not remember if it applied to this particular limit.
Memoria fugit.



Â*Around 1994, Phoenix came out with
LBA mode at the BIOS level.Â* LBA mode was supported by ATA-1 back in
1986, but the BIOS makers didn't support it until years later.

I remember something about a 32GB limit, and do know about the 128GB limit.

https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html

There was a 137 GB limit, which is 128 GiB ;-)


«The 137 GB limit (Sept 2001)

As mentioned above, the old ATA protocol uses 16+4+8 = 28 bits to
specify the sector number, and hence cannot address more than 2^28
sectors. ATA-6 describes an extension that allows the addressing of 2^48
sectors, a million times as much. There is support in very recent kernels.»


--
Cheers, Carlos.

Big Al wrote:
On 6/25/20 4:37 AM, this is what Chris wrote:
On 2020-06-24 22:33:05 +0000, Ant said:

Arlen Holder wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:28:04 -0400, Paul wrote:

But generally, finding good media today is pretty hard.

I'm a Costco aficionado, where I used to buy the stack of, oh, maybe 100 at
a time, but they don't sell 'em anymore at Costco (AFAIK).

Which brands did they sell and you use?

I still have a stack of DVD-R (Datawrite) and DVD-RW (Imation) blanks
that I bought years ago. Not sure why I'm keeping them as I'm unlikely
to ever use them.

Welcome to the club. I used to buy then by the 100 tubes, CD's, DVDs,
printables too. Still have about 600 or so. I burn one about once
or twice a year. That one 100 pack will last me 50 years. I'm 72, do the math. :-)

I have good news and bad news...