[ale] 10GB harddrive

[R I Feigenblatt]

[ale] 10GB harddrive
Michael Cooper (gte124i at prism.gatech.edu) wrote on
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 20:38:39 -0400

>My Linux Redhat 5.1 won't recognize my 10GB harddrive.  And it causes my
>drive to lose two GB of space.  Inorder to install Linux on my machine I
>resized the original partition from 10 to 7 GB.  I went to install Linux in
>the remaining three gigs, but Linux (DiskDruid and Fdisk) only recognized up
>to eight gigs.  I went ahead and installed it to a 1GB partition.   But when
>I went to reclaim the two gigs that were unallocated they weren't there any
>more.  I when I got rid of Linux they cam back.  Is there a way I can get
>Linux to recognize the missing two gigs, or too just keep it under Win98?

Sorry, Mike. This is just the latest:
"Whoops! I didn't know hard disks would ever get THAT big!" problem.

First there was the 1024 cylinder aka 528MB) problem,
then the 4096 cylinder problem, and now finally your
"no more than 24 bits to number 512-byte sectors problem."
That is probably why you can see no more than 8 Gigs under RH 5.1.

When I installed RH 5.0 this spring I advised Red Hat of this issue.
See my appended e-mail below. I have not followed up on what they
have done about this.

Ron Feigenblatt

======================== ATTACHMENT FOLLOWS =======================

Date: 22 Apr 1998 16:59:34 -0000
 From: <support-daemon at redhat.com>
To: docdtv at mindspring.com
Reply-To: support at redhat.com
Subject: [ticket #28091]


Thanks for the input. According to developemtn this is a problem on our
part that is being worked on in the kernel. The quantum bigfoot drive uses
certain parameters we arent aware and we come up as not seeing the drive
currently. I do not know when a fix will be available. If you wish to
return the product, please contact sales at redhat.com or the reseller that
you purchased it from. My apologies again.


On 22 Apr 1998 support-daemon at redhat.com wrote:

> At 09:24 PM 4/21/98 -0000, you wrote:
> >
> >Your ticket has been reassigned to a level 2 engineer.
> >
> >I have not seen this problem but it could be that what Linux is reading
> >off the hard drive or the BIOS is confusing it. What is the actual # of
> >cylinders, heads, sectors of the drive? Also is the drive UDMA or EIDE?
> >
> >
> >On 16 Apr 1998 support-daemon at redhat.com wrote:
> >
> >> On 13 Apr 1998 support-daemon at redhat.com wrote:
> >> 
> >> > Date: 13 Apr 1998 15:36:43 -0000
> >> > From: support-daemon at redhat.com
> >> > Reply-To: support at redhat.com
> >> > To: mike at redhat.com
> >> > Subject: [ticket #28091]
> >> > 
> >> 
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------
> >SJS
> >
> >
> 
> I repeat my original report:
> 
> 	Unlike Windows 95 (OSR2 using FAT16) and Windows NT WS
> 	(Version 4.0 with SP3), RedHat Linux 5.0 CANNOT see my
> 	entire Quantum Bigfoot TX12.0A EIDE hard disk. RH 5
> 	only sees 255H, 63sec, for 1024 cyls of 16065*512 bytes,
> 	or 8422686720 bytes.
> 
> 	My SuperMicro motherboard is P5MMS98 and uses the BIOS
> 	file called Mms2091.rom to patch to BIOS level 
> 	MMS/MMS98 020998. This patch enables the so-called
> 	"INT 13 extensions", to provide support for disks
> 	over 8.4GB in size.
> 
> 	See http://www.quantum.com/src/whitepapers/8.4barrier.html
> 	for more information on this issue.
> 
> It is INDEED an EIDE drive. It actually has
> 	23361 cylinders
> 	16	heads
> 	63	sectors
> The cited URL discusses the origin of the confusion.
> As more and more people use drives over 8.4GB,
> you will see this problem ever more often.
> 
> I would be pleased to run test code you might provide
> and report results. I would appreciate any assistance
> you could render.
> Thanks, Ron
> 

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SJS