Re: IDE disk drive controllers and disk drive sizes supported by RedHat 9 Shrike

["Kevin J. Cummings" <cummings@kjchome.homeip.net>]

Alexander Povolotsky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have Linux Red Hat 9 on Pentium III PC (Dell Optiplex 110 )
> running off the 8 Gb Disk Drive; there is also small boot drive on that IDE controller. 
> 
> I ran out of disk space on that 8 Gb disk drive.

Yeah, I hate it when that happens.  B^)

> There is also another IDE controller for the functional CD-ROM there.
> 
> I bought (3rd) SIIG UltraATA 100 PCI Controller and 80 Gb Western Digital IDE disk drive - could I add this new controller with this new disk drive and somehow make existing Linux Red Hat 9 recognize this new drive as additional disk space ? Is SIIG UltraATA 100 PCI Controller 
> supported by RedHat 9 ? If yes, do I need to do something specific 
> (like compiling module ? - if yes - could be 'dynamically loadable 
> module' or the module should be statically compiled into the kernel ? -
> are steps to be performed documented someplace on-line ?).

Assuming that Linux supports (recognizes) the PCI controller (I don't 
know, but it should), its configured to be the tertiary controller (IO 
addresses, IRQ, possibly DMA) correctly, and either the kernel sees it, 
or you can configure the proper kernel parameters such that the kernel 
can use it, yes, theoretically, you can do this.  Plug it in, and see 
what happens.  B^)  That's what I'd do.  You mught want to look at the 
Linux Boot Prommpt HOWTO for the proper kernel parameters, if you find 
that you need them.  Disk devices on the tertiary controller would be 
hde & hdf.  Note that your mb BIOS won't see any drives on this 
controller in any event, so its completely up to Linux to recognize it 
and configure it properly.

> Somebody told me that 'SIIG's IDE controller is a bad choice for Linux Red Hat 9 and that IDE controller from 'Promise' is supported by RedHat 9 - is it true ? 

Sorry, I don't know if that particular SIIG controller is a bad choice 
or not, why not Google for it?

> Is 80 Gb drive in general supported by RedHat 9 (which is Linux kernel 2.4 based ) ? If not what is the largest size supported: 10 Gb ? 20 Gb ? 40 Gb ?

In general, Linux doesn't care about Hard drive size, *but* your 
motherboard BIOS *might*.  I had a mb with a 32GB hard drive size 
limitation.  Using a larger drive caused the POST to hang detecting the 
drive.  The workaround was to use the "cylinder limitation jumper" which 
told the BIOS the drive was a 32GB drive, and then I rebuilt the RedHat 
9 kernel to enable the kernel to query the drive directly for its proper 
LBA size.  I think the directive was something like CONFIG_IDE_STROKE.
I used this for my "new" 120GB drive on this old mb until I bought a new 
mb with larger IDE support.  See the Large Disk HOWTO for all the gory 
details on IDE disk limitations and under what circustances....

> Suppose alternatively to above discussed I will just add 20 Gb drive to the second (available) slot on the existent IDE controller, which now controls the CD-ROM - will it work ? (... and if 'yes' - are any actions needed on my part ?).

Yes, this *will* work, but there was always some question about what 
happens when an hdd & a cdrom share the same cable.  Some opinions were 
that the hdd accesses slow down to the cdrom speeds when both are in 
use, due to the way ATA is defined.  I don't know if that remains true 
today.  That's why I have 2 hdds on IDE0 and 2 cdroms (cdrom & dvd) on 
IDE1 on my machine.

> Thanks,
> Alex

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome@rcn.com
cummings@kjchome.homeip.net
cummings@kjc386.framingham.ma.us