upgrading 486s BIOS

[pfarrar at learningco.com (pfarrar at learningco.com)]

     Leslie,
     
     I have had mixed results with a SIIG BIOS card I bought.
     
     On a 33Mhz 486 - I was able to install a 1 Gig drive.  Later I tried 
     the same card in a P60 for a 5 Gig drive, but couldn't use my CDROM 
     anymore (Strange).  Not only couldn't the BIOS locate it, but Linux 
     couldn't.  More recently I acquired a P90, which wouldn't recognize 
     the 5 gig drive - and so, wouldn't boot without a floppy.  I installed 
     the finicky BIOS card and now every thing works.
     
     So I guess it's hit or miss, but it's not outside of the realm of 
     possibilities.
     
     Peter
     
     P.S. what does that mean, "Linux cannot be installed via a secondary 
     BIOS"?


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: upgrading 486s BIOS
Author:  Leslie Owen Everett <leverett at massart.edu> at InterNet
Date:    11/22/99 10:00 PM


Perhaps someone reading the list has resolved this already,
     
Recently I inherited ten working DELL 486/MEs with: 66 MHz, 325MB hard drives, 
and 32
MB RAM. Eventually I plan to use them to build a Beowulf system. I installed a 
6.0 GB
hard drive on one of them with SuSE Linux 6.0, it works fine and is now my 
primary
Linux box.
     
I partially installed Red Hat Linux  6.0 on another 486. The installation was 
incomplete needing 770 MB or so.  I decided to upgrade with a 8.4 GB drive, and 
had to
upgrade the Phoenix Ltd. BIOS. The BIOS can't see the 8.4 GB hard drive. I 
bought a
"DTC Ultima EIDE port and BIOS upgrade card" (for older computers if BIOS does 
not
support HDD greater than 500 MB) and plugged it into an ATI slot. I couldn't 
partition
"/dev/had", only starting at "/dev/hdc". The new BIOS more or less recognizes 
the
large ATA drive and reports this, but the machine defaults to the Phoenix Ltd. 
BIOS.
It advises checking the jumpers, I tried, switching the drive from Master 
(default) to
Slave, with the same results, can't access it.
     
I installed Red Hat 6.0 on this machine and it worked fine, except I was unable 
to
access "/dev/had", or "LILO" , so I had to boot Linux from a floppy. I read in 
"Linux
secrets" Linux cannot be installed via a secondary BIOS. My question is: Has 
anyone
successfully installed Linux after upgrading the BIOS on a 486? Short of going 
ahead
and replacing the motherboard, this might be an exercise in futility, but I'm 
not
convinced yet.
Thanks in advance for any information,
     
- Leslie Everett
     
     
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Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 22:00:59 -0500
From: Leslie Owen Everett <leverett at massart.edu>
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