[Re: slave->master]

[Matt Graham]

Paul_Melson@keykertusa.com wrote:
> >I had a machine with two harddrives in it where the slave had Linux on 
> it. The
> >MBR had LILO on it. I removed the master. Booting therefore is a bit
> >complicated.
> >
> >How do you turn a Linux slave drive into a Linux master drive? I tried 
> changing
> >/etc/fstab, moving it to master position, and setting the pins on the 
> drive to
> >master but the BIOS wouldn't be game to that. It stalled on detecting the
> >drive.
> 
> That's actually a good start.  You'll need to grab a DOS/Win9x floppy and 
> run `fdisk /mbr` with that drive set to master.  After that you'll need to 
> re-install LILO to the MBR.  That and the fstab changes you've made are 
> really all you have to do.

If the BIOS stalled on detecting the drive, then it's obviously not an OS
problem.  Did you make sure to change the jumper setting on the drive from
"slave" to "master" when you plugged it into the master plug on the first IDE
controller?  If the drive is jumpered as slave and plugged into the master
slot, very weird things can happen.

Another problem may be that the BIOS caches info about the connected IDE
devices in its NVRAM.  You may have to go into the setup screen, select
"detect drives", and tell it to auto-detect the devices on the IDE busses
again.  I had to do this the first time I plugged things in to my Abit KT7.

Also, if this disk is too large for the board (shouldn't happen unless the
board is > 2 years old and the drive is > 32G) then the BIOS may not be able
to detect the drive or boot from it.

HTH,

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
There is no Darkness in Eternity
But only Light too dim for us to see

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