by Subject: Linux Fdisk Problem w/ Thinkpad 350
Does anyone have any experience loading Linux onto a ThinkPad 350? I am
having a problem reformatting my hard disk using the Slackware FDISK
program and have not been able to find a solution in the slackware FAQs.
I am trying to install Linux on an IBM ThinkPad 350 with a 250 Mb hard
disk
and 4 Mb RAM. I did not get any drive info with the material that came
with
the computer so I called IBM to get the information. They told me that
the
drive has 1426 cylinders, 6 heads and 43 sectors/track (specifically, they
said "43 inner diameter sectors for 167 outer diameter tracks").
I booted the TP with the slackware SCSINET Boot Disk, and then loaded the
TTY144 Root Disk. After logging in as Root and starting FDISK, I executed
the 'p' command and got the following info (This is what the full screen
read:
[After exectuting FDISK I got the following:]
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1426.
This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with some software.
Using /dev/hda as default device
Command (m for help): p [<<Then I issued the 'p' command]
Disk /dev/hda : 6 heads, 43 sectors, 1426 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 258 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1 1034 133348 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 1, 1) logical=(0, 0, 35)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(522, 14, 34 logical=(1033, 5, 1)
Partition does not end on cylinder boundary:
phys=(522, 14, 34) should be (522, 5, 43)
**End of Screen**
I tried to go ahead and create a partition, but the Linux Fdisk program
could only find and use the logical partition endings, leaving me with
cylinders 1034-1426 to play with.
What do you think I should do/can do safely to fix this? Thanks a lot
for
your attention.
--Ned Bade
Cornell International Institute for
Food, Agriculture and Development
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853