RE: [TCLUG:1360] Formatting Partitions for Large disks?

[Ben Kochie <ben@nerp.net>]

you may want to check micron's page for a bios update to add a newer LBA
translation to the system so it will push the cylinders below 1024

or you can try MaxBlast translation software, it was written for maxtor corp..
but works great on any drive.. and has some cool other features.. it is really
nice because it can be installed over the top of other drive overlay sofwares,
and then can be removed, without damaging dos partion's data.. so if you are
moving a drive from an old 486, where drive translate was necessary.. to a new
pent box.. it's no problem.. :)

On 24-Sep-98 Eric Hillman wrote:
>> Hi:
>>
>> We just got a 450 PII from Micron with a 10.1 GB hard disk. It was
>> partitioned with a 2 GB FAT and 8 GB NTFS partition. We wanted to wipe
>> out everything and install Redhat Linux. But somehow, only 8 GB of the
>> hard drive is being seen by FDISK. I also remember seeing an error
>> message in my NT setup saying that the disk had more than 1024 cylinders.
>> Is this the source of the problem? How can I reclaim the lost 2 GB?
>>
>> I  can provide the fdisk partition table, but it spans from cylinder 0
>> to 1023 and seems OK...
>>
>> Is there some low-level format tool we can use?
>>
>>
>> DIsk druid also can't find the missing 2 GB...
>>
>> We did install Linux on the 8 GB and the boot messages show that the hard
>> drive has 9728 MB available. ALso the BIOS shows 10 GB...
>>
> 
>       I'm assuming this is an IDE drive -- if so, make sure the BIOS has that
> drive set up in LBA mode.  This should, usually, translate the drive
> geometry to something below the 1024-cylinder limit (although with a drive
> that huge, I'm not really sure.)
>       In fact, if the BIOS has an auto-detect feature, you may want to give
that
> a whirl.  I've occasionally gotten ahold of a computer where somebody set up
> the BIOS more or less at random -- the drive size is correct, but the
> geometry (cylinders/sectors/heads) is totally, er, non-Euclidean.
> Auto-detecting has never failed me yet.
>       I believe linux fdisk *should* be able to see past the 1024-cylinder
limit
> if the disk is set up correctly in the BIOS.  According to everything I can
> find, the only real restriction is that your boot information has to be
> between cylinders 0-1023.  Again, I've never had to deal with an IDE drive
> larger than 2.5 GB, so I really can't say for sure.
>       If that doesn't work, I'll gladly trade you your worthless 10GB for an
old
> 850MB disk I'm not using any more...  I guarantee fdisk won't have any
> problems with this one.
> 
> 
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Thank You,
        Ben Kochie (ben@nerp.net)

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