Niels Stenhoj wrote:

On Sat, 08 Nov 2036, Wim van Cappellen wrote:

| Hi, | | I am trying to install Suse 7.0, but the partitioning program does not | recognise my harddisk correctly. The harddisk is connected to a (PCI) | Promise Ultra 66 controller on an Asus P3B-F mainboard. The (Maxtor) | harddisk has a size of 30 Gb, but only the first 8 Gb can be used during | partitioning (same problem for Yast2 and manual partitioning).

I have Asus P5AB Motherboard and an Ultra66 Card as well. I've encountered several problems, and I've overcome them. I downloaded the latest firmware (BIOS) for The Promise Ultra66 Card. That solved the problems getting Linux detecting it correctly. Then I discovered

that despite that a MB problem remained. It turned out to be the settings of the CMOS hanging. I removed the battery and replaced it by a coin to short circuit the CMOS. I made one start up. Switched off and put the battery back, and I entered the correct values for the different BIOS parameters.

That helped.

As to the harddisks, I've noticed a minor problem with the SUSE partitioning in 7.0. There may be an unnoticed question with 6.3 and 6.4, but for these versions I only used Partition Magic 5.0 for Dos to partition. The problem is that YAST2 apparently writes incorrect geometry info to the disk(s). If this is the case, Partition Magic will discover it at start up, and ask you if it should fix it. PM 5 may be a solution for you, but check that you BIOS/CMOS is clean.

I've personally concidered installing using a floppy image of CD-1 made especially for IDE controllers, but still I think that default kernel ik ok.

BTW, I haven't encountered locks up of the BIOS since I booted Windows off my machine.

| I tried to supply the kernel with the correct drive geometry during boot | (linux hde=16383,16,32). This does not fix my problem. | When I connect the drive to my onboard IDE controller, the disk is | recognised fine and there is no problem at all. | I flashed my mainboard BIOS and the Promise Ultra 66 BIOS to the newest | versions available at the manufacturers website. The harddisk already has | one primary Windows 98 (FAT32) partition of 5 Gb. The remaining 25 Gb is | empty (unpartitioned). | I have booted from the supplied Suse CD. | | Do you know how to correct this problem?

See above. You are welcome to ask again. | | Wim van Cappellen. | | | ____________________________________________________________________ | Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at | http://home.netscape.com/webmail

Thank you for your reaction. I have managed to partition my complete harddisk with the following strategy: - at the boot prompt I have typed 'manual hde=16383,16,63' to enter manual installation mode. - I started a rescue system from my CD-ROM and partitioned my harddisk with fdisk. - I rebooted the machine and started the 'normal' installation procedure. Although the partitioning in Yast2 reported that my harddisk was only 7.9 Gb, it did accept the (much larger) manually created partitions. - The installation continued perfectly. Note that I also have updated my motherboard and Promise Ultra66 BIOS. I am now booting from a floppy and the system works fine. Thanks again for your response. Wim van Cappellen. ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/webmail -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq