Very Computer

I think I need a newer version of FDISK in order to read my large
Harddrive, but I am not very experienced with Linux.  Can someone please
point me in the right direction.

        I am trying to reinstall my RedHat version 4.0 onto a new IBM 16.5 Gig
drive. However, FIPS run under DOS reports a corrupted partition table
and will not let me proceed with the installation. Similarly, FDISK run
under Linux also says that it can't recognize /dev/hda, notwithstanding
the fact that during the Linux boot process from floppy, the system
reports all of the partitions on the hard drive correctly (ie hda1,
hda2, ... etc)  

        The drive is set up as LBA, and I recall shows as about 2052 cyclinders
in the BIOS (I'm not in front of the machine right now).  The target
partition is entirely within the first 1023 cylinders and will for
example happily load OS/2 and boot from it.  Therefore, it does not
appear to be either a hardware problem, or a 1,023 problem.

        I guess I need an updated version of FDISK (the file date of FDISK in
my package is 02/12/96).  Where do I get it? I am totally unfamiliar
with the Linux ftp sites, etc.

        The drive is the only drive in the system, and it has OS/2 Boot Manager
manager installed. Windows 95, Windows 98, OS/2 versions 3.0, 4.0 and
WarpServer are all installed properly and able to read the partition
table correctly.  Therefore, the hardware seems just fine.

        I have used the identical setup (same LINUX CD, same install, etc)
before without trouble on smaller IDE drives, so the problem seems to
reside in the drivers needed to read the larger drive.

        Does anyone have any clues to help me?  Do I need a newer version of
FDISK, and if so where can I get it?  I would appreciate help from
anyone who has been down this route.

--
Hugh Campbell

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I think I need a newer version of FDISK in order to read my large
Harddrive, but I am not very experienced with Linux.  Can someone please
point me in the right direction.

        I am trying to reinstall my RedHat version 4.0 onto a new IBM 16.5 Gig
drive. However, FIPS run under DOS reports a corrupted partition table
and will not let me proceed with the installation. Similarly, FDISK run
under Linux also says that it can't recognize /dev/hda, notwithstanding
the fact that during the Linux boot process from floppy, the system
reports all of the partitions on the hard drive correctly (ie hda1,
hda2, ... etc)  

        The drive is set up as LBA, and I recall shows as about 2052 cyclinders
in the BIOS (I'm not in front of the machine right now).  The target
partition is entirely within the first 1023 cylinders and will for
example happily load OS/2 and boot from it.  Therefore, it does not
appear to be either a hardware problem, or a 1,023 problem.

        I guess I need an updated version of FDISK (the file date of FDISK in
my package is 02/12/96).  Where do I get it? I am totally unfamiliar
with the Linux ftp sites, etc.

        The drive is the only drive in the system, and it has OS/2 Boot Manager
manager installed. Windows 95, Windows 98, OS/2 versions 3.0, 4.0 and
WarpServer are all installed properly and able to read the partition
table correctly.  Therefore, the hardware seems just fine.

        I have used the identical setup (same LINUX CD, same install, etc)
before without trouble on smaller IDE drives, so the problem seems to
reside in the drivers needed to read the larger drive.

        Does anyone have any clues to help me?  Do I need a newer version of
FDISK, and if so where can I get it?  I would appreciate help from
anyone who has been down this route.

--
Hugh Campbell

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

You might consider spending another C$12.50 to pick up an up to date
version of Linux.  I doubt that the kernel in that version of RedHat has
any idea what to do with more than 8.0GB.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard S. Lumpkin, Ph.D.                            Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry                                     256-890-6365
University of Alabama in Huntsville                     fax 256-890-6349
Huntsville, AL 35899                          http://chromophore.uah.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In answer to my earlier post about having trouble with getting Linux
FDISK to work on a 16 Gig drive, I have finally come up with a solution
that works:

FDISk only reported errors if the entire drive was partitioned properly.

By leaving the top portion unpartitioned, FDISK was happy, and could
run.  I could put the swap space entirely above 1,023 cylinders with no
problem.

I didn't trouble myself to find out at what point up in the stratosphere
of the 16 gig drive that FDISK conked out.  I basically just got it to
go, and then after Linux was installed, I went back into OS/2 and
repartitioned and formatted the rest of the drive for use with the OS/2
system.

This was on a copy of RedHat 5 by the way. It had the identical problems
to both my Slackware and Redhat 4 distributions.

The downside is that at present, I cannot use or re-use Linux's FDISK to
adjust anything, unless I back up and delete the 7 Gig data partition at
the top of the drive.  Shouldn't be a problem unless (until?) I forget
in two years time.

In answer to my earlier post about having trouble with getting Linux
FDISK to work on a 16 Gig drive, I have finally come up with a solution
that works:

FDISk only reported errors if the entire drive was partitioned properly.

By leaving the top portion unpartitioned, FDISK was happy, and could
run.  I could put the swap space entirely above 1,023 cylinders with no
problem.

I didn't trouble myself to find out at what point up in the stratosphere
of the 16 gig drive that FDISK conked out.  I basically just got it to
go, and then after Linux was installed, I went back into OS/2 and
repartitioned and formatted the rest of the drive for use with the OS/2
system.

This was on a copy of RedHat 5 by the way. It had the identical problems
to both my Slackware and Redhat 4 distributions.

The downside is that at present, I cannot use or re-use Linux's FDISK to
adjust anything, unless I back up and delete the 7 Gig data partition at
the top of the drive.  Shouldn't be a problem unless (until?) I forget
in two years time.

You're lucky.  In my RH 5.1 distribution, both Fdisk and Disk Druid
reported the wrong drive size.  This was on a 12 gig Quantum.  Finally
had to fool it with Partition Magic.  Anyway, I'm running SuSE 5.3 now
and all partitions are well.  Don't wanna go through THAT again.

Harry

IIRC the kernel shipped with RH 5.0 is 2.0.32.  That's part of the
problem if you check out:

http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Large-Disk-7.html

Support for disks greater than 8GB wasn't included in the stable kernel
tree until
2.0.34pre14.  So even RH 5.1 might not have the support you needed
unless you upgraded the kernel.  The last stable kernel I know about is
2.0.35.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard S. Lumpkin, Ph.D.                            Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry                                     256-890-6365
University of Alabama in Huntsville                     fax 256-890-6349
Huntsville, AL 35899                          http://chromophore.uah.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------