[lug] How to Recognize Big Drive?

[Riggs, Rob]

You may be able to gain access to the entire disk under Linux by forcing
fdisk to use the specific geometry you mention below. Note the use of the
word "may". This does not work in all cases.

Under fdisk, you need to choose "x" for "extra functionality" (or "expert
mode"), and from there you can set the cylinders, heads and sectors. You
will need to delete the existing partitions, then change the geometry
settings, then repartition. Write the changes and reboot using your Red Hat
7.1 install disk.

When you do this, you may also have to set the disk geometry in LILO. (See
the User Guide.) In that case, you will not gain full access to the disk
until after Linux is installed, /etc/lilo.conf is modified, the new LILO
configuration is installed, and the box is rebooted.

This is old IDE BIOS size limitation issue is a PITA. Consider upgrading
your motherboard. Your sanity is worth the extra money.


-----Original Message-----
From: James Stroud [mailto:James.Stroud at Colorado.EDU]
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 3:35 AM
To: lug at lug.boulder.co.us
Subject: [lug] How to Recognize Big Drive?


I am running Red Hat 7.1 on a P200 with a BIOS from 1996 (Adaptec v 1.3). I
am having trouble with fdisk properly partitioning the drive. It is a Maxtor
Diamond Max 61 GB Drive (16383 Cylinders, 16 Heads, 63 Sectors). Sfdisk can
only see ~30 GB of the Drive, claiming that it has 65531 cylinders of 1008 *
512 bytes. It partitions fine under this scheme and I can format it and
mount it, but I loose 50% of my disk capacity. So my questions are: (1) Is
this a kernel issue, an fdisk issue, or a bios issue? (2) Can I fix it? (3)
If 2=yes, how do I?

Thank you to anyone who can help.

James
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
 James C. Stroud
 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
 University of Colorado at Boulder
 Boulder, CO 80309

 Tel: 303-492-4503      Fax: 303-735-1347
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