Large Disk Drives

As I read the ads for 160 GB, 250 BG, and 300 GB disk drives, I've seen
articles indicating there's a 137 GB roadblock for Win98/ME, and various
options, including add-on IDE controllers to cope with the problem.

I think I saw mention of 48-bit BIOS address space. Perhaps this
indicates another hardware dependency--does the motherboard (or IDE
controller) support 32-bit LBA or 48-bit LBA?

I presume that the retail packages for these large disks include some sort
of disk translation software.

Any implications w.r.t. Linux?

--
Dave Brown Austin, TX

AFAIK, the limitations are indeed BIOS-specific. Linux can access the
hardware directly, so the only restriction should be, for example, to
place boot partitions within BIOS cylinders [1..1024].

Also, try to find the latest BIOS on the web.

Regards
Joël

Dave Brown wrote:
> As I read the ads for 160 GB, 250 BG, and 300 GB disk drives, I've seen
> articles indicating there's a 137 GB roadblock for Win98/ME, and various
> options, including add-on IDE controllers to cope with the problem.
>
> I think I saw mention of 48-bit BIOS address space. Perhaps this
> indicates another hardware dependency--does the motherboard (or IDE
> controller) support 32-bit LBA or 48-bit LBA?
>
> I presume that the retail packages for these large disks include some sort
> of disk translation software.
>
> Any implications w.r.t. Linux?
>