UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,
Thanks to Merlin & Djtrippin for comments in another thread.

Does anyone know of any issues with harddrive size and Mandrake 9.0? I have installed Mandrake (like a dream) on a 10gb drive but it refuses to go beyond the partition check on my 80gb unit. The 80 is new and I have checked it with Seagate's diagnostics (short & long - XP loads on it fine). Mandrake printed a test page for me during installation (on the 80), so what could be stopping it at the partition check on it's initial reboot? I've tried various size partitions. What might I have screwed up?
PS Both Win drives were disconnected during installation and all subsequent attempts to reboot so multibooting shouldn't be an issue(?)

FWIW: Some people have problems with older BIOS with regard to larger disks.

Hi Neo,
Thanks for the response. The Penguin bit me today. I still can't get Mandrake 9 to recognise/partition my 80, it will go on an old 20 though - like a dream. 7.2 will go where 9 will not. I think it's my motherboard. Or my gForce 4. I updated my bios when I put the gForce 4 card in. I sort of saw the white rabbit when I found a two week old article for dills like me that Man 9 doesn't like promise softway (even if it is disabled). Or is there a workaround? I have to have promise installed in the registry (even if disabled) to boot my motherboard.

the nextthe next

I've just installed RedHat 8.0 on my 80Gb drive

(NB although my MBoard is so old I can't see the Drive though the BIOS so I use a PCI HDD controller).

Hi Ralph,
As soon as I can get my hands on a copy I'll try RedHat. I've been mix'n'matching bits between three boxes all day and no matter which motherboard I tried it with, I couldn't get my copy (a magazine cover copy) of Man 9 on the 80. 7.2: yes; 9: no. And 9 wouldn't start when using my preferred Athlon chipset, no matter which drive I tried. But it installed in less than 12 clicks on an old 20 with a P3 machine and on a 10 with an AMD 900 (?)

Hi all,
I have my hardware configured a little differently, but I still get:
CMD680: chipset revision 1
CMD680: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide2: BM-DMA at Oxc807-0xc807, BIOS settings: hde: pio, hdf: pio
ide3: BM-DMA at Oxc808-Oxc80f, BIOS settings: hdg: pio, hdh: pio
PDC20276: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 80
PDC20276: chipset revision 1
PDC20276: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
PDC20276: (U)DMA Burst Bit ENABLED Primary MASTER Mode Secondary MASTER Mode
Ide4: BM-DMA at Oxe400-Oxe407, BIOS settings: hdi: pio, hdj: pio
Ide5: BM-DMA at Oxe408-Oxe40f, BIOS settings: hdk: pio, hdl: pio
hda: ST360021A, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST360021A, ATA DISK drive
hdc: ST320410A, ATA DISK drive
hdd: ATAPI 44X CDROM, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hde: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffff8)
hde; IRQ probe failed (0xfffef7f8)
hde: SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-308B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hde: IRQ probe failed (0xfffef7f8)
hdf: IRQ probe failed (0xfffef7f8)
hdf: IRQ probe failed (oxfffef7f8)
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, 0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177, 0x376 on irq 15
ide2 DISABLED, NO IRQ
hda: 117231408 sectors (60022 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=7297/255/63, UDMA (100)
hdb: 117231408 sectors (60022 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=7297/255/63, UDMA (100)
hdc: 39102336 sectors (20020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=38792/16/63, UDMA (100)
hdd: ATAPI 48X CD-ROM drive, 128kb UDMA (33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Ide-floppy driver 0.99
Partitioncheck:
Hda:

Hda is where 2K is installed, hdb is XP, hdc is intended for Linux. Any ideas as to how to get past this point?