Compaq Desk Pro series 4000 & 2000 - BIOS Warnings
 

Hi !

Systems :

Compaq Deskpro 4000 5166 (Pentium 166)
Compaq Deskpro 4000 5200 (Pentium 200 MMX)
Compaq Deskpro 2100 5200 (Pentium 200 MMX)

Question

When you remove the primary HDD.
Reboot.
Install a primary HDD.
The BIOS on these machines issue a warning following the HDD detection.

"If you are running Unix, you need to configure your system
using the COMPAQ User diagnostics diskette"

I downloaded the user diagnostic and setup diskettes from
www.hp.com filename: SP8126.exe (English).

Created the diskette images, ran the utilities.

BUT THERE IS NO MENTION OF ANYTHING TO Enable/Disable
for Unix installations !!!! :(

ie surfed the www and Compaq's www documents make the same
warning statement.

Apart from not creating a diagnostic partition using setup,
and erasing the HDD before installing Linux, FreeBSD, etc
does anyone know what this warning is all about ???

Regards

Chris

Solution :

Insert the Personal Computers diskette and power off/on
Computer Setup
Storage
Help

Bottom of the page !

The explanation is that DOS, Windows, etc
require that a HDDs parameters need to be translated
so that it appears to have fewer than 1024 cylinders !
Unix, Banyan, etc require untranslated HDD parameters !

Revised Question :

Does anyone know if this address translation issue
affects Linux or FreeBSD ?

Since Linux and FreeBSD evaluate the disk geometry
and read/write directly from the HDD does the
BIOS HDD geometry need to be translated ?

Regards

Chris