Harddisk problems >32GB
 

Under W98 I partitioned a Maxtor 40GB Harddisk with Partition Magic in approx 4*10GB. W98 however recognised only 32GB, but by running the Maxblast.exe from Maxtor that difficulty was solved.
On the second partition I installed Suse Linux 7.2, Kernel 2.4.4-4GB with KDE 2.1.2. When I try to access the W98 partition reaching beyond 32GB under Linux, my system starts to work like hell and pulling the power plug is the only remedy. Depending on how fast I do that, Linux has corrupted a various number of file and folder names and their links in that partition (which I can repair using scandisk) and I may have to repair the linux file system because of my cruel abortion. Under linux the disk capacity is reported as 32GB.

As I try to replace or move as much of the windows stuff over to linux, sooner or later I would like to use the full capacity of my 40GB (or maybe more later) and avoid the havoc which happens when I click on that windows partition. (Maxtor has only that .exe for windows and nothing for linux.)

Thanks for help

thats quite an old kernel you are using there. the disk i/o has been greatly improved since then (new stable kernel is 2.4.19 fyi).

Thanks ...but

I downloaded, compiled and installed the new kernel 2.4.19. But it is too large to fit on a boot floppy. After initially taking the option 'oldconfig' I reconfigured with Xconfig and shed around 150K but it is still far beyond 1.4M. As for now I need to boot with floppy (I don't trust the M-shit side to use the master boot record, and I have not yet managed to get familiar with the linux software to use my CD burner), I tampered somewhat with the lilo.config file on the floppy but had afterwards a hell of a time to get back to the old linux kernel. Now I set everything back to the old kernel and hope to get safely back to booting the old linux without trying a dozen options!

.. back to the problem: is there a possibility to spread the necessary kernel and boot files over 2 floppies or use one of the big files (System.map or vmlinuz) directly from the harddisk partition? If so, how do I create this/these floppy/ies?

Thank you

I wouldn't fear using LILO on your MBR. Microsuck doesn't actually have a bootloader for 98, they just have the partition flagged bootable and the beginning of their system init right there at the front of the partition. You can have Linux boot the same way and do way with a bootloader entirely... but If you build lilo.conf right you've got no worries.

Win 98 is capable of seeing past 32Gb, the problem is a report from your BIOS that windows is having an issue with, that's what the maxtor .exe is correcting.

I don't have a single dual-boot left in the house really to give you an example lilo.conf, but you can find one on the web in a few seconds... remember if you don't like what you ended up with, if win98 is no longer bootable, or Lilo won't boot SuSe, you can just boot from a floppy like you're used to and as root from SuSe hand it:

lilo -u

And it will restore the MBR right back to where it was before you installed lilo.

Cheers,

Finegan