> > I just repartitioned with fdisk, and gave the first paritition a
> > size of 5 cylinders, then made the second partition from cyl 6 to
> > cyl 1000. I tried to format /dev/hdc2 and got the same error
> > exactly as before. This must be a mke2fs bug or a kernel
> > bug/feature. Can anyone offer any insight? I need this drive
> > working asap.
>
> WHat parameters does the BIOS offer for it, and which have you
> selected?
My motherboard is a modern board that autodetects. I've used all
of my drives in this board in a standalone fashion at one time or
another. All my drives have greater than 1024 cylinders, and I
put the BIOS in its "AUTO" state. With AUTO, it works fine for
DOS, Win95, NT, etc... but Linux mke2fs says "Nope". I'm
positive it is because the drive is > 1024 cyls and is on the
secondary interface.
Linux is the only OS using the drive's ACTUAL drive geometry...
> I've had that same problem a few times, and each time, it's occurred
> when I've selected some setting other than the one the BIOS
> recommends, and does NOT occur when I accept the BIOS recommended
> setting...
Well, the drives have all been in my machine for 5 months
approximately, and I've been using them ok for that long. The
drive did not appear in Linux as > 1024 before, and all my
partitions worked fine on all drives. I used Linux fdisk to
remove ALL partitions on that drive (which is /dev/hdc), and now
when I create partitions, fdisk displays (1-1046) when asking for
cyls. I can only conclude that on a partitioned disk, fdisk uses
the geometry found in the MBR. On an unpartitioned disk, fdisk
uses the geometry queried from the drive on the secondary
interface. If I put the drive on /dev/hda the problem
disappears. Nothing wrong with my CMOS....
I've been told that it is a linux bug when I got my Quantum
Fireball SE 4.3G, and the workaround was to remove all drives,
and put the drive on /dev/hda, then partition, then put it
wherever I like. I was hoping that this problem was fixed now...
I'm not sure of the details of it, but it was something to do
with the Linux HD code I believe.
> In theory, that should make no difference whatsoever, but in
> practice...
Heheh, yeah.... exactly... ;o) Oh well, if I can't get it
working as is, I'll just have to ruin my uptime, and pull the
drive, partition it on another machine, and then put it back.
Take care!
TTYL
Why not escape from the confines of Microsoft operating systems
and try the true power of LINUX - a real OS. http://www.redhat.com
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