I ran “dmidecode” to double check and I determined that I have 0406 version of the BIOS on my Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard (my HAL1000 PC as I like to call it (an Intel Core i7 920 cpu based PC)).
I had previously updated the BIOS to 0406 (documented here: Asus P6T experiences on openSUSE-11.1 - openSUSE Forums )
I went to the Asus web site and noted the most current is 0504.
I will update the BIOS but I don’t believe in the case of this motherboard that it will help. Still, it was a very good suggestion to check for a BIOS update.
I did examine the text description of the BIOS change to 0504 and none of the “fixes” resemble anything close to what I encountered. The changes introduced in 0504 are:
1. Support new Express Gate version
2. Fix system may hang after resume from S3
The partitioning size I am using is enormous. I wonder if this is a BIOS issue or simply my poor planning? How far apart should be boot partitions be in terms of the BIOS ability to handle booting on a big HD?
I believe my way forward will be to wait a month or so, until my Athlon-2800 PC is returned from a friend (as that used to be my main PC before I purchased the HAL1000). Once I have that older PC back, I’ll make it into a “hot” backup and I’ll then go into the HAL100 PC where I am having this problem (with the 1.5 TB hard drive) and I’ll shuffle the partitions on that HD. I think I will create:
- sda1 = primary 100 GB WinXP
- sda2 = primary / (25 GB for openSUSE-11.1)
- sda3= primary / (15 GB for Linux distro's under test)
- sda4= extended
- sda5= logical swap (2 GB or so)
- sda6 = logical 25 GB or so of /home for Linux distro under test
- sda7 = logical 1.2 TB or so for /home for openSUSE-11.1
Which will put the new planned boot partitions (sda1, sda2 and sda3) in easy reach of the BIOS. I think I will also throw the largest partition (the 1.2 TB) at the end of the partitioning. I might also carve up sda1 (the 100 GB WinXP) and take some of its space and throw it into a separate NTFS partition in the extended area.