Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (
More info?)
"Arno Wagner" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message news:30e50vF2s7o7sU1@uni-berlin.de
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage larrymoencurly <larrymoencurly@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > If I partiton and format an HD with one brand of IDE controller, will
> > it be readable under Windows with other brands of controller?
>
> > I ask because there used to be compatibility problems among some mobos
> > and their IDE controllers because of BIOS differences, I don't want to
> > be left high and dry if I have an oddball PCI IDE controller fail.
>
> > I'm mostly concerned about Promise, SIIG, and Silicon Image PCI IDE
> > cards. I realize that they use different Windows drivers.
>
> As long as you use LBA,
Well, there isn't much choice, is there. It's the operating system
or program that decides whether CHS or LBA addressing is used.
> there will not be a problem (unless the implementation is buggy).
What implementation.
> With any type of CHS you might get problems,
Clueless Arnie again. LBA as found in the MB bios *IS* about CHS.
It is called LBA-assist translation (as opposed to Large or Normal
CHS translation).
The bios settings are all about CHS, they decide how the bios Int13
CHS call will translate into the drive interface CHS or LBA command.
To address a drive in LBA the Int13ext call must be used.
It doesn't need settings as there will not be any translation.
> since it can be different for different BIOS.
Only if the bios behaves in a way that it shouldn't.
The BIOS should read the info from the MBR, not from it's settings.
The settings come in effect when a prestine drive needs partitioning.
With current large drives the CHS is only important for booting (Int19).
On non-bootable drives the CHS is mainly ignored (well, at least with
Windows9x and FAT32 it is).
Some NT flavor drivers appear to have problems if the large drive place
holder CHS values (values that signal that the drive is over 8GB) aren't
used (see Svend's 32GB problem). There also was a problem with a drive
that offered 15-head translation instead of 16-head translation where
an NT flavored Windows wouldn't recognize the drive as bigger than 8GB.
Oh, and the add-in IDE cards usually don't even offer translation settings.
>
> RAID is a different story, here vendors are intentionally (at
> least that is what I think) incompatible.
>
> Arno