[NTLUG:Discuss] Hard Disk Size

[Stephen Klein]

vinod choyi wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I bought a new hard disk(13 Gb) recently and wanted to
> install SuSE/Caldera. When I tried to partition the
> hard disk to my surprise it just shows 7 Gb. Could the
> problem be with my bios. And if so, how could I solve
> the problem because the customer service at maxtor
> told me that they did know how I could do it on Linux,
> but they had solutions for Win 95/98..
> I have never installed Linux before.
> 
> regards and thanks
> 
> vinod
> 
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I did this exact same thing some time ago, so supposedly I can help
here. :)

I'm running a 2.0.37 kernel on a custom Pentium 233MMX on an Intel 430HX
chipset, the BIOS is dated 1996, so it does not support drives over
8.4GB (the old LBA limit).  The new LBA standard is such a messy kludge
that I don't even want to try to explain it.  I'll leave that to the
Large-Disk-HOWTO, available at
http://www.linux-howto.com/LDP/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html as others
have noted.

But, getting down to business, here's what I did in my situation.

First off, set the BIOS to access the disk in NORMAL (CHS) mode, when I
selected LBA mode, Linux somehow got confused about the drive geometry,
and I'm quite sure the kernel thought the disk was about 7GB, but don't
take my word for it.

Next, get things booted and check the drive size, watch the messages as
the kernel is booting.  Linux is smart and ignores what the BIOS claims
are the harddrive parameters and asks the drive itself, but I don't know
why things get confused when the BIOS uses LBA (bug maybe, or fixed in
2.2.X?).

After getting things going, you need to create your partitions, using
fdisk or whatever your distribution uses.  Since LILO has problem with
partitions over 1024 cylinders, you need to create a small partition
under cylinder 1024 for the /boot directory.  I just made a small
partition from cylinders 1 to 10, about 10MB worth on my drive.  Use the
rest of the drive for the root (/) and swap partitions.  I'm not sure
how Suse or Caldera work, but if the Slackware install notices multiple
partitions it asks which one you want to use as root (/), and where you
want the other partition(s) mounted.  You want to get the first
partition (/dev/hda1) mounted as /boot.

One other thing, putting the keyword LINEAR in the lilo.conf file, can
solve a number of problems with large drives.  Check the
Large-Disk-Howto for a (somewhat) better explanation.

After all that is done, then you can format the partitions, and run the
install.


A bit long here, but more detail is usually better in situations like
these. :)

Stephen Klein
TI DMOS4/5 ADSM Project
DFW Technology


-I was born to turn my mind over to the Web.
-OK, you can, but I'll stick to reality.  I'll come and visit though. :)