fdisk/cfdisk probs w/large drives?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: fdisk/cfdisk probs w/large drives?
started by: msuho

Posted by msuho on Oct. 19 2004,21:51

I've installed DSL 0.82 on the 850MB hard drive of my old P133, and the 6GB drive of my Sony Vaio laptop, both with no problem. Then I tried it on a 20GB Maxtor drive

Neither cfdisk nor fdisk recognized the existing linux & swap partitions I'd created via Partition Magic. I recreated them using
fdisk or cfdisk, and when I try to save the new partition info-
The entire machine locks up (video, mouse) until I reboot.

I have a Knoppix 3.3 Live CD, so I popped it in. Same behavior.

Now here's what's really wierd- I have an old Slackware distribution (7.1). I put that in. It can see the linux & swap partitions just fine, and I was able to install Slackware on this disk!

I used Synaptic to download cfdisk v2.11 from the debian.org site. Same behavior.

If anybody can suggest another course of action, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

Mark

Posted by roberts on Oct. 20 2004,00:34

What does fdisk -l show?
Some utilities allow partitions to be made "out of numerical cyclinder order", i.e., start at end of disk. Sometimes fdisk -l will display a warning. Usually I have had to delete all the partitions and make them with fdisk in cyclinder order to avoid this.

Posted by msuho on Oct. 20 2004,02:50

The fdisk -l output looks as follows:

fdisk root@box:~# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 2113 MB, 2113536000 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes

Disk /dev/hda doesn't contain a valid partition table

Posted by msuho on Oct. 20 2004,03:00

So, trying to add the partitions:

root@box:~# fdisk /dev/hda
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

I create partitions:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 870 1753888+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 871 1023 308448 82 Linux swap

then try to write them. Excuse me for a moment, this will probably hang my machine...

Posted by msuho on Oct. 20 2004,03:15

Sorry for the disjointed posts- issuing the write command at the end of the last example causes the video & mouse to hang.

As I've said before, I've gone through this exercise on the drives of two other machines with no problem. I've also checked the drive jumper settings- it's set as the primary master.

I'm outta ideas at the moment.

Mark

Posted by AwPhuch on Oct. 20 2004,17:41

Does the bios of the computer support such a large drive??

Also try < http://awphuch2000.dyndns.org:1079/dban/auto.build/quick/ >
Be advised it writes 0's to the entire harddrive, restoring it to its factory default which is good for a fresh install of an OS.

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 20 2004,20:39

I'vr also seen issues like this where LBA was NOT ENABLED in the bios,
causing the cylinder/sector/head counts to be different from what the drive was reporting..

73
ke4nt

Posted by skaos on Oct. 21 2004,09:48

AwPhuch is correct when he asks if the bios supports such large disks - I think PCs of that vintage has a bios limit of 8 GB (or maybe even 2 GB). As far as I understand, Linux doesn't use the bios, so Linux itself is able to access the whole disk. The problem is that the bios is used initially when booting, so the boot partition have to be within the first 8 (or 2) GB.

Posted by msuho on Oct. 21 2004,14:09

Brian, ke4nt, skaos-

Thanks for all the ideas. I'd be embarassed to say how many times I'd reloaded this box in the last week

I've zero'd out the drive w/ Maxblast twice now, before reloading it.

The cylinder/head count thing is somewhere close to the truth. I've mentioned
it before- I can partition this drive in some other distros of Linux. Slackware, Debian, & Suse all work. Caldera, Knoppix, & DSL all have the same problem with disk partitioning- & the cylinder counts are different.

Hmm- Is it a GRUB vs LILO thing?

I'm going to check the LBA setting, and if it's not, I'll enable it and try this ONE MORE TIME!

Thanks all,

Mark

Posted by skaos on Oct. 21 2004,14:31

I don't know if this helps, but it is possible to set/force the physical disk geometry at the boot prompt: < http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO-7.html >

Posted by AwPhuch on Oct. 21 2004,16:01

Plus I think those other distros create a /boot parition in which it is smaller than the 1024Bytes...

DSL creates one large honkering / partition in which the other directories are located....

Perhaps if you created a 10-15Meg /boot parition on say /dev/hda1 and the larger / dir on /dev/hda2 it might recognize it and use the /boot partition and fix your problem

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by msuho on Oct. 22 2004,02:30

I don't think it's the tiny partition thing.

If I boot up DSL & look at my drive, I get:

fdisk root@box:~# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 2113 MB, 2113536000 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes

For comparasion's sake, I loaded Suse 9.1, and ran the same command:

linux:/home/msuho # fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 20.4 GB, 20490559488 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 39703 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 39001 19656472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 39002 39703 353808 82 Linux swap

Look at the disk size & the number of cylinders- different. Same disk. Same BIOS. Notice, too, that Suse's booting out of one big partiotion. I don't know if it's the kernel or the fdisk command.

I really appreciate all the advice & suggestions. I may just have to be content with using DSL from one of my other boxes.

Thanks,

Mark

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 22 2004,04:59

I wonder if the "gnu-utils.dsl" extension contains a different version of the cfdisk or fdisk utility?

Try installing this extension and then see what your drive configuration looks like.

Posted by skaos on Oct. 22 2004,09:49

Two suggestions:
- make a 1 GB partition at the beginning of the disk and install DSL.
- look up the heads/cyls/sectors info for your disk and compare to the output from Suse and DSL fdisk. If they are the same as the Suse fdisk info, try to set/force them at the DSl boot:-prompt.

Suse vs. DSL: Could it be that the Suse kernel is placed within the first 8GB, and the DSL outside (just guessing though)?

Posted by msuho on Oct. 26 2004,03:22

I wanted to fllow up on this thread, as so many folks gave me good ideas.

I got an updated AMIBIOS BIOS for my motherboard from eSupport, with large drive support (yeah, actually paid $$$ for it) . I flashed the BIOS, and tried again. fdisk still does recognized existing partitions or the partition table, nor will it let me write changes if I try to create them all from scratch.
I've screwed around with this for almost a week- I admit defeat.

A curious aside- I mentioned in a previous post that I had the same proble with Knoppix 3.3. Well, I tried Knoppix 3.6 over the weekend- the fdisk & knoppix-install scripts worked fine on this box. But it's way more that I want.

I still am using DSL on two other machines (I boot off a USB stick on one, have it installed on the HD on the other), so I'm not giving it up- I just wanted to stick to one distibution on all my boxes.

Thanks again, guys-

Mark

Posted by newcat on Oct. 26 2004,05:25

hi mark,
i have similar experience few hours ago.
i think fdisk feel your the partition table of your 20g harddisk is corrupted. fdisk may not accept what pm (bootstar in my case) do to your hdd.you may try to correct with below:
1. backup all important data
2. d/l a low-level formatter in maxtor site, and do a quick llf.
3.connect 20gb hdd to primary master and make sure its jumper setting is correct(cdrom better in secondary master, and nothing else)
4.fdisk under dsl and then mke2fs. check if any partition err reported.
5.if everything ok,REBOOT
6.install to your new partition under dsl.
hope this help, good luck.

Posted by msuho on Nov. 06 2004,04:49

I never give up!

After reading other posts dealing with unrecognized disk geometry, I tried booting
with dma set, and I'm able to partition the disk.

After that, I did a frugal install. The frugal_intsal.sh has nodma set as an option. I changed that to dma, ran the frugal install, and ...

SUCCESS!

I am able to boot from my frugally installed partition.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. We can put this thread to bed!

Mark

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 10 2004,17:50

hmmmmmmmmm.
is there a disk checking util you could use. fsck would push up errors if the drive is bad as well, try that.

Posted by msuho on Nov. 11 2004,02:40

As I think I mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread, I can read & partition this disk fine from Suse, Slackware, & Knoppix 3.6 Distros. The problem seems to be with DSL's detection of the drive geometry. I had this same problem with earlier versions of Knoppix up to 3.3.

Mark