by Here's a question that has perplexed me since the earliest of my Linux days:
Why does Linux NEVER read the BIOS translations (i.e. 16 -> 64 heads, etc)
for any harddrives attached to the secondary controller? This is actually
causing problems for one of my machines. I have tried setting the correct
settings manually in the Partition Table with fdisk, but those aren't read
until the partition table is read, which is after the drives are detected.
Say we have a system that has an EIDE controller, onboard or card,
regardless. I have not noticed the order as being of any great import, as far
as the secondary controller is concerned.
Here are a couple clips of dmesgs from different machines.
---
hda: ST31720A, 1626MB w/0KB Cache, LBA, CHS=826/64/63, MaxMult=16
hdb: Maxtor 71336 A, 1277MB w/64KB Cache, LBA, CHS=648/64/63, MaxMult=16
hdc: CD-ROM CDU311, ATAPI, CDROM drive
hdd: WDC AC31000F, 1033MB w/64KB Cache, LBA, CHS=2100/16/63, MaxMult=16
---
hda: WDC AC21000H, 1033MB w/128kB Cache, LBA, CHS=525/64/63, DMA
hdb: WDC AC31600H, 1549MB w/128kB Cache, LBA, CHS=787/64/63, DMA
hdc: WDC AC22100H, 2014MB w/128kB Cache, LBA, CHS=4092/16/63, DMA
hdd: HITACHI CDR-7730, ATAPI CDROM drive
---
hda: ST51080A, 1033MB w/128kB Cache, LBA, CHS=525/64/63
hdc: ST32140A, 2015MB w/128kB Cache, LBA, CHS=4095/16/63
hdd: GCD-R542B, ATAPI CDROM drive
---
Regardless of whether or not it is set in the BIOS, I have never seen Linux
read in the translated settings (in order to get below 1024 Cylinders)
correctly for any drive attached to the secondary controller.
Does anyone know why this is?
--
Jordan Ritter
EECS Department, Packard Bldg.
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA
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| "The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, |
| with more expected." |
| - The UNIX Programmer's Manual, Second Edition, |
| June, 1972. |
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