Is there such thing as the 137Gb hard disk limit in Linux?

breadbin · 09-22-2006, 02:56 PM

Hi, I recently bought a 200Gb hard disk only to find out that my BIOS is old and can't see the whole thing (No 48bit LBA or something). I read something recently on Linux.ie that due to the nature of the linux kernel it will be able to detect it and access the whole 200Gb and not just the 137Gb that the BIOS sees. I am running Mandrake 9.0 and was thinking I might have to get a controller card or enclosure but hopefully I won't have to now. Thanks.

Eckstona · 09-22-2006, 03:48 PM

From my expierience, there isn't a 137gb limit in linux. I run a 160gb drive and it sees all of it. You should probably buy a PCI IDE bus.

randyding · 09-22-2006, 10:32 PM

I just got done reading this, not an expert. I read that the boot partition needs to be in the lower range accessible by the BIOS, but once the kernel is loaded that limitation is gone.

Half_Elf · 09-23-2006, 12:41 AM

Linux likes to go over (bypass) the BIOS. Thus, you will probably see the total 200GB. However, DMA will probably fail (as it need BIOS?) and you will get horrible performances But you will be able to read the data, at the very least.

hansalfredche · 09-23-2006, 10:57 AM

Have you tried to find a more recent BIOS for your mainboard? On many boards this solves the problem and you don't have to use complex tricks to fool the BIOS. If you haven't already done it, you should really consider this solution, as it is likely to be the easiest one.

No idea however HOW you exactly can fool the BIOS.

Linux itself supports 200GB just fine.

breadbin · 09-23-2006, 02:26 PM

Thanks for the interest, I might have a look and see if there is a BIOS update although I have just installed Mandriva and everything works perfectly. There was no mention of any hard disk limit. I have yet to write in the upper part of it so maybe there might be performance issues but other than that it is perfect. Great stuff.

Electro · 09-23-2006, 05:36 PM

In Linux DMA is done by virtual memory. My secondary controller on my AMD 700 MHz computer can only see up to 50 GB, but I have 120 GB hard drives connected to it. There is no performance penalty. The only penalty is it is using a 2.4.x kernel.