Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!sun4nl!cs.vu.nl!fvkampen
From: fvkampen@cs.vu.nl (Florentijn van Kampen)
Subject: Re: Need help with Toshiba 286 Laptop
Nntp-Posting-Host: flits.cs.vu.nl
Keywords: probe-fail hd install
References: <4i41mj$a0i@news.uit.no> <Do7ryw.8I4.0.-s@cs.vu.nl>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 18:48:25 GMT
Message-ID: <Do7ywq.FAq.0.-s@cs.vu.nl>
Lines: 35

kjb@cs.vu.nl (Kees J Bot) writes:

>erlingp@stud.cs.uit.no (Erling Paulsen) writes:

>>I have an old Toshiba 286 laptop with 1MB RAM and 40MB HD. I downloaded
>>the i86 version 1.7.2 of minix. The problem is that when "part" starts to
>>check out the HD it cannot read or find it. The error goes something like
>>this: 
>>	"hd0-probe failed." 

>"at-hd0: probe failed" is a message from the AT/IDE disk driver.  It
>means that the driver cannot find a AT style disk controller.

>Try again with the Boot Monitor setting 'hd=bios'.  This will make Minix
>use the generic hard disk driver that uses the BIOS like DOS does,
>except that Minix has to jump in and out of protected mode.
>--
>	                        Kees J. Bot  (kjb@cs.vu.nl)
>	              Systems Programmer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

When you are about to recompile the kernel, it does pay off to take a
look at DMA_SECTORS in /usr/include/minix/config.h This specifies
the number of sectors read in when a read call is done.
As Kees J. points out in a 'BUG' section in one of the manual pages:
'(...) the bios driver isn't that slow when the DMA_SECTORS is set
to a higher value (...)'. 
Efficient values are 16 or 32. I don't think higher values make sense...

	Florentijn van Kampen

-- 
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam    |  Florentijn van Kampen
Department of                   |  'Freedom is the right to say: two plus  
Mathematics and                 |   two equals four. If that is granted,
Computer Science                |   everything else follows.' (Orwell 1984)
