The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's GuideDrop the obsolete bad144 discussionOne reviewer said to drop the bad144 discussion because it's obsolete. He also said to treat systems with a CMD640 IDE controller in them as uninstallable since they would be obsolete anyway. I decided to talk about bad144 and the CMD640 because they highlight two significant differences between the old "wd" disk driver and the modern "ata" Atapi IDE disk driver that supports UDMA and all that. This is another example of why some people may want to run older FreeBSD versions. Also, I have noted that people with unreliable hardware, like systems with a CMD640 controller or a faulty IDE disk, are easy prey to the panacea, "There's a software fix for the hardware flaw." I have read too many times on the newsgroups of ignorant people recommending bad144 to desperate people with failing IDE disks, instead of telling them to throw them out. I felt that providing the information of what bad144 is really used for (old ESDI disks) was a better response then just telling people to ignore advice they might get elsewhere telling them to try bad144.
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