2000-12-07 17:53:42

by Stephen Williams

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: 40Gig IDE disk wrapping around at 32Gig?


During an install of RedHat 6.1 onto a Dell Dimension L600cx, I partitioned
the internal 40gig disk to include 4 partitions. I initially let the disk
druid do it, but it rendered the partition table unreadable. So I used
fdisk and partitioned it with primary partitions like so:

(sectors = 255, heads = 63)

/dev/hda1 1 -- 17 (136521 blocks)
/dev/hda2 18 -- 50 (265072 blocks)
/dev/hda3 51 -- 3967 (31463302 blocks)
/dev/hda4 3968 -- 4865 (7213185 blocks)

Problem is, any attempt to mkfs on /dev/hda4 seems to trash the filesystems
on hda1, hda2 and hda3. It makes an ugly mess.

RedHat 6.1 installs a 2.2.12 kernel, with patches. I'm ignoring /dev/hda4
for now and I've installed 2.2.17 from source. It seems reliable as long
as I ignore /dev/hda4. I haven't tried it w/ 2.2.17 installed.

Am I running into some limit here? Are there any known issues with
Linux 2.2.12 or fdisk (or mkfs.ext2) that might relate to this?
--
Steve Williams "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
[email protected] But I have promises to keep,
[email protected] and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep."



2000-12-07 18:48:17

by Stephen Williams

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: 40Gig IDE disk wrapping around at 32Gig?


[email protected] said:
> My understanding is that the part you're accessing, above 33.6 gig,
> wraps around the int or whatever they use(i'm not a programmer, and
> i'm not going to think about what it'd actually be <grin>)

2.2.17 solves the problem. The 2.2.12 kernel definitely goes
berserk when faced with blocks way up there. With 2.2.17, the whole
disk works fine.

Thanks for the fast response.

--
Steve Williams "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
[email protected] But I have promises to keep,
[email protected] and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep."


2000-12-07 20:14:23

by Andries Brouwer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: 40Gig IDE disk wrapping around at 32Gig?

On Thu, Dec 07, 2000 at 09:22:38AM -0800, Stephen Williams wrote:

> During an install of RedHat 6.1 onto a Dell Dimension L600cx, I partitioned
> the internal 40gig disk to include 4 partitions. I initially let the disk
> druid do it, but it rendered the partition table unreadable. So I used
> fdisk and partitioned it with primary partitions like so:
...
> Problem is, any attempt to mkfs on /dev/hda4 seems to trash the filesystems
> on hda1, hda2 and hda3. It makes an ugly mess.
>
> RedHat 6.1 installs a 2.2.12 kernel

Large disks require 2.2.14 / 2.3.21 or later.

> with patches.

For vendor patches, consult the vendor.

(And, in case you have more problems: include (i) fdisk version.
(ii) kernel version, (iii) dmesg | grep hd.)

Andries