Very Computer

Hello,

Since a few weeks, I encounter a problem to install Linux. Today, I've just
received the new InfoMagic CDs and the problem is still there :-(

 Which hardware do I have ?
==========================
  486DX/2 66
  16 MB RAM
  Mitsumi CD-ROM (LU005S, single speed), on its own controler
  SCSI controler BusLogic BT-545S ISA (BIOS version 4.70)
  SCSI HD 1 GB, Quantum Empire 1080S (1029 cylinders, 64 heads, 32 sectors)

The SCSI controler and hard disk are correctly recognized at boot time :

  BusLogic SCSI: Inquiry Bytes: 41 41 33 33
  Configuring BusLogic ISA HA at port 0x330, IRQ 12, DMA 5, ID 7
  BusLogic SCSI: Using extended bios translation

  Vendor: QUANTUM   Model: EMPIRE_1080S      Rev: 1101
  Type:   Direct access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02

On the hard disk, there is a primary partition (the first and only one) of
250
MB for MS-DOS, created and formated with MS-DOS 5.0's utilities.

What is the problem ?
=====================
The distribution I want to install is the Slackware, and I use two floppies
(Mitsumi and Color144). Fdisk tells me that there are some problems with
the
boundaries of my MS-DOS partition and gives an another geometry than what
it is in reality :

  Disk /dev/sda: 128 heads, 32 sectors, 514 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 4096 * 512 bytes

     Device Boot  Begin   Start     End  Blocks   Id  System
  /dev/sda1   *       1       1     125  255984    6  DOS 16-bit >=32M
  Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
       phys=(249, 63, 32) logical=(124, 127, 32)
  Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
       phys=(249, 63, 32) should be (249, 127, 32)

I tried booting Linux with the parameter "hd=..." but he gave up, telling
me that there are more than 16 heads. I didn't have this problem with the
kernel 1.0.9., but I did when I upgraded to kernel 1.1.62. Then, MS-DOS and
Linux worked fine, even with this problem, but I couldn't install LILO
anymore on the
hard disk, I had to use a floppy.

The kernel 1.1.62 works fine on another machine with 2 IDE hard disks
(number of heads <= 16). Of course, I don't have any problem if I install
Linux on a
FAT partition, with UMSDOS.

Hope somebody can help.

Daniel Meyer,

Quote:>     Disk /dev/sda: 128 heads, 32 sectors, 514 cylinders
>     Units = cylinders of 4096 * 512 bytes

>    Device Boot  Begin   Start     End  Blocks   Id  System
>     /dev/sda1   *       1       1     125  255984    6  DOS 16-bit >=32M
>     Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
>      phys=(249, 63, 32) logical=(124, 127, 32)
>     Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
>      phys=(249, 63, 32) should be (249, 127, 32)

BTW I also have the Empire1080S so I suspect this to be the reason.

Per "Peer Gynt" Vaihinen        $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


University of Abo Akademi       $           - Rutger Hauer in               $
Use LINUX! It's free!           $            Wanted, Dead or Alive          $
                                $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I got a kernel that supports the host and I'm accessing everything
fine, but when I try to partition, I'm getting *about the number
of cylinders being above 1024 and how some programs may * about
it.  

Any ideas on what I should do to solve this problem and finally get
linux on my system?  Can linux support a drive this large?

Please reply via email as well as this posting.  Email is

Thanks.

--
=================================================================
        "Bending over backwards to get the job done!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 o   \ o /  _ o         __|    \ /     |__        o _  \ o /   o

 DM> Disk /dev/sda: 128 heads, 32 sectors, 514 cylinders
 DM> Units = cylinders of 4096 * 512 bytes
 DM>
 DM> Device Boot  Begin   Start     End  Blocks   Id  System
 DM> /dev/sda1   *       1       1     125  255984    6  DOS 16-bit >=32M
 DM> Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
 DM> phys=(249, 63, 32) logical=(124, 127, 32)
 DM> Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
 DM> phys=(249, 63, 32) should be (249, 127, 32)
 PV> Are you sure that you don't enable anything called LBA in the Buslogic
 PV> BIOS to get support for > 1GB disks in DOS?!! Something similar to
this
 PV> happened for me when I enabled this feature in my AHA1542CF BIOS. I
 PV> turned it of and took care that none of my booting and FAT partitions
 PV> where over the 1023 cylinder limit, now I only have my swap partition
to
 PV> cross this boundary.
To avoid this kind of problem, I've never used the tracks above 1023, but
the
problem was always there. Indeed, your idea was the right one, I changed
switch
5 on bay 1, on the Buslogic BT-545S and Linux didn't grumble anymore.

Now, at boot time, I just have one more status line about the BT-545S,
saying :
  DOS Disk Space > 1 GBytes option enabled.

After this change, at boot time, the host complained about my partition
table.
Fdisk one time to erase the DOS partition and fdisk again to have a brand
new
one, according to the new parameter and almost everything is fine.
"Almost",
because the performances of the hard disk are running down at light speed
(about
50 % of what I had before). So I'm gonna switch it back to its original
value and use an old version of the kernel (1.0.9 was fine) :-(

Thank you very much for your help, and many thanks also to :


for their multiple and good advices.