On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 10:53:00PM -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:57:38 -0400
> Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:
> > 
> > I used to use an old Thinkpad but the tent I was using it in got hit
> > by lightening and the screen and HD got fried.  I can still use an
> > external screen but I'm told by two local vendors that new hard
> > drives won't be recognized by the BIOS to be bootable; a
> > designed-obsolecence feature.
> > 
> 
> How old a Thinkpad?  That doesn't sound right -- I've upgraded the disk
> on many a Thinkpad, without any trouble as long as I wasn't trying to
> copy the Windows partition...  

Its a 600E, bought used (2 years off-lease) in 2002 ish.

> 
> The big issue with most old BIOSs -- and check thinkpad.com for updates
> -- is that they can't boot anything whose blocks go past 8G or so.  The
> easy fix for that is to have a small / partition on a large disk, with
> everything else in another slice.  NetBSD doesn't use the BIOS, so
> you're golden.  You *might* have to muck with the drive geometry when
> installing the system, though.

That's what I was figuring; just like any other old computer.  But I was
_assured_ by two vendors that it wouldn't work.

> 
> If you can borrow a 2.5" drive or pick up a cheap one on Ebay, it's
> worth a try, I'd say.
> 

I'll probably get a new drive and if it doesn't work put it in an
external USB enclosure and try that; if it doesn't work then use it as a
backup device for my main box.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Doug.