Re: DTC EIDE BIOS CARD - Allows older PC's to use large drives!

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Need your advice on "DTC EIDE BIOS CARD - Allows older PC's to use large 
> drives!"
> 
> Got some e-mail from the "Closeout Specials from Dalco" e-mail list I am on.
> The item below interests me.  Do you know anything about it?  In particular,
> is DTC a brand or a type?  Any idea what the max. limit hard drive it would
> support?  I'm figuring this card would max out at 8GB, which is more than
> plenty for me.  I've got 4 486/486dx AMI BIOS 1991/1992 motherboards with
> all ISA slots I want the card to go in.  How does it work?  Does it disable
> the existing BIOS?   Is the card OS independent?  In particular, will it
> work fine with RedHat/OpenLinux/Slackware Linux and Net/Free/Open BSD? I
> guess all these questions I can ask the sales people.
> 
> The biggest question is if that is a good price?  I'm gonna assume it is a
> good price.  I wonder if this card has adventages over replacing the BIOS
> chip on the motherboard.  Does this card have any other features, like hard
> drive controller, or do I have to continue using my existing hard drive
> controller card?  Does it provide PnP support like an outright BIOS upgrade
> would?

I can't help you with any specifics on the card, but I've seen other
IDE controller cards in the $15 range, so it's probably a fair price.

As far as Linux, as long as it's standard IDE, it should work AFAIK.

One other thing you should be aware of, Linux (all distributions)
does not require LBA bios to access a large disk on older PC's.

The only problem you will have with Linux is getting it to boot.
Since older bios's can only access the first 1024 (0-1023) cyl's
on the disk, so your kernel must be in that area to boot.  This can 
easily be accomplished by creating a partition on the beginning of 
the disk entirely in this area that contains the kernel.  Once Linux 
is booted, it no longer uses the bios, and can access the entire area 
of large disks without a problem.

If you plan on having a multi-boot system, you may run into trouble
other operating systems not being able to access cyl's > 1023.
But, not the case with Linux.  I've done it many times on old PCs.

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
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