Very Computer

Sorry this is so long but I'm hoping someone else has already been
through exactly the same thing and succeeded.

thanks,
pjg

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

: My 4.3G drive if I let the BIOS config it shows up as 297M using LBA
: in the BIOS startup screen and Win98/Dos but Linux sees it as
: 14896/9/63 CHS which is correct and correctly uses it. I can't say why
: but I've used everything I can think of except the large drive setting
: in BIOS that the drive only reports to BIOS as being 297M.

Quote:> I can't say why

: I have contacted
: support at RH.  They said to enter boot parameters for my Quantum
: Fireball KX 13GB IDE drive along the lines of the following: 'linux
: hda=1666,255,63'.

The disk is listed as a 13698 MB one, if I am not mistaken.
Now 1666*255*63*512=13703316480, a little too much.
But 1665*255*63*512=13695091200 and this fits.

So - if you really want to invent a geometry, then use 1665 cylinders.

:     System boot messages following running vmlinuz... pause after
: finding PII4X IDE controller and then trying to(,,,mount? I guess)hda.
: System returns "hda no response (status=0xff)."
:     I'm using BIOS 4W4SB0x0.15A.0013.P08 on an Intel PIII 500.
: Questions:
: 1. Has anyone out there managed to dual boot on a hd greater than 8GB?
: If so, how?
: 2. Has anyone enabled LBA without hosing legacy data or should I expect
: that and take appropriate measures?
: 3. What is at the core of this problem?  Is it an RH thing, a Linux
: thing, a my-version-of-BIOS thing, a hard drive thing, an IDE controller
: thing (this was suggested in another thread I read in this forum), or
: some combination of one or more of the above thing?

Answers:
1. No problem - if the BIOS cannot see more than 8.4 GB,
then you may need a boot partition so that Linux can be booted,
and once Linux runs all should be fine.
2. Changing the disk geometry may well make other operating systems
unhappy. This is not the same as hosiing your data, because you can
set the translation mode back to what it was and all is fine again
(unless this other operating system managed to destroy stuff in its
confusion). Changing translation mode in itself does not harm data.
3. You did not give all the kernel boot messages involving hda,
but `hda no response' clearly is not a geometry problem but an
IDE driver or hardware problem.
Since Linux has been started here already, the BIOS is not involved
(although it may have initialized the disk to some unfortunate mode,
such as UDMA 66).

There are, unfortunately different "definitions" of MB in use,
anywhere from 1.000.000 through 1.024.000 to (the actual value)
1.048.576. With GB, it's even more fun.

A GB should be 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 1.073.741.824. Thus, 13 GB is
13.958.643.712. Since the manufacturer should not give an overestimate
of the capacity, the geometry hda=1666,255,63 seems
to be just fine.

Quote:> :     I'm using BIOS 4W4SB0x0.15A.0013.P08 on an Intel PIII 500.
> : Questions:
> : 1. Has anyone out there managed to dual boot on a hd greater
> : than 8GB? If so, how?

Quote:> : 3. What is at the core of this problem?  Is it an RH thing, a
> : Linux thing, a my-version-of-BIOS thing, a hard drive thing,
> : an IDE controller thing (this was suggested in another thread
> : I read in this forum), or some combination of one or more of
> : the above thing?

It's less likely to be a Linux thing, as Linux instally and runs on
disk this size (and above). The only Linux thing I might think of
would be incompatibility with your IDE on-board controller.

HTH,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Artur Swietanowski                         http://swietano.spedia.net
Institut fr Statistik,  Operations Research  und  Computerverfahren,
Universit?t Wien,     Universit?tsstr. 5,    A-1010 Wien,     Austria
tel. +43 (1) 427 738 620                     fax  +43 (1) 427 738 629
---------------------------------------------------------------------

For those who may use this post as a reference:
- Do the above; ensure that the BIOS setting for your primary IDE
controller is at least set to "auto" so that it can detect your drive;
at the boot prompt I specified "linux hda=1666,255,63" (parameters I did
get out of partition magic);.  Everything came up fine for me.

fyi, in BIOS under my primary controller mulit-sector transfers are set
to 16, LBA mode is enabled, transfer mode is fpio 4/DMA 2, Ultra DMA is
mode 2.  These parameters were set in another mode.  Now that I am in
auto they aren't changeable.  Not sure what all their impact is but I
haven't had problems since setting them up.

Thanks for your suggestions and/or analyses.  My other post documents my
resolution to this problem, but to further clarify, I also managed
create a logical /boot partition south of the 1024th cylinder and all
seems to be well.  They recommended as much in the RH install guide so
I never had a chance to experiment doing it any other way and probably
won't.  I'm on to my next problem which is to get my screen resolution
to at least be able to do 640X480 instead of the electron microscope
mode I'm in now when I run xwindows.  I've got a 3dfx Voodoo3 3k AGP
graphics card which doesn't seem to be listed with the other card
options.  So I'll be stuck figuring out what to do about that for a
little while I'm sure.

Thanks again.

::  : I have contacted
::  : support at RH.  They said to enter boot parameters for my Quantum
::  : Fireball KX 13GB IDE drive along the lines of the following:
::  : 'linux hda=1666,255,63'.
::  
::  The disk is listed as a 13698 MB one, if I am not mistaken.
::  Now 1666*255*63*512=13703316480, a little too much.
::  But 1665*255*63*512=13695091200 and this fits.

: Actually, 13.698 MB = 13.698 * 1.048.576 = 14.363.394.048

: There are, unfortunately different "definitions" of MB in use,
: anywhere from 1.000.000 through 1.024.000 to (the actual value)
: 1.048.576. With GB, it's even more fun.

: A GB should be 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 1.073.741.824. Thus, 13 GB is
: 13.958.643.712. Since the manufacturer should not give an overestimate
: of the capacity, the geometry hda=1666,255,63 seems
: to be just fine.

You are entirely mistaken.

As I wrote elsewhere recently :

---------------------------------------------------------------
The norm in all scientific and computer standards will tell you
that 1k = 1000, 1M = 1000000, 1G = 1000000000.
A kilogram is *not* 1024 gram. A megawatt is *not* 1048576 Watt.

Out of sloppiness, and because saying 1024 is too much effort
when everybody understands you when you say 1000, computer people
started using kB and MB for 1024 bytes and 1048576 bytes whenever
there was no danger of confusion about what was meant in reality.
Thus, when talking about memory modules that almost always come
in power-of-two sizes the sloppiness of talking about 16 MB of memory
is harmless. However, disks do not naturally come in power-of-two
sizes, and using 1073741824 bytes as a disk size unit is in no way
convenient.

Thus, the disk drive industry does precisely the right thing when
they follow the SI norm, like everybody in the computer industry -
all ANSI, IEEE, ATA, SCSI standards will tell you that 1M = 10^6.
Because that is what it is.
---------------------------------------------------------------

So, if you think that 1 MB is something other than 1000000 bytes,
you will compute the wrong geometry for the disk.