Drive Geometry - Gnu/Debian.

[Craig Main <craig-m@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I have a problem installing Linux onto a large drive.
(I have read Large-HOWTO - and remain somewhat confused).

My drive is a 1.3GB Maxtor.
BIOS reports the cylinders at about 675 (less than 1023, obviously, as I am using LBA mode).

During the installation of GNU/Debian, I am warned that the drive geometry should have a cylinder count in excess of 2000. (2553 if I remember correctly). I am using OS2 boot manager and lilo to boot linux off the partition. The only way I could install Linux at all was to create a small DOS partition on the drive. Linux then detects the DOS partition and decides to use the existing drive geometry (675 cylinders). No problem: except I don't want the *($%#@% DOS partition in the same room, let alone on the same hard drive.

At what point in the installation process can I specify the drive geometry that I would like to use. The Large-HOWTO suggests using a hdd= ???? or disk =??? command before the Linux partitions are created. I cannot seem to find the syntax for specifying the drive geometry, or a convenient time to interrupt the setup process, which is quite busy a lot of the time.

It is interesting to note that if the drive is setup as Large mode in the BIOS, as opposed to LBA, it matches what Linux expects to find. Using Large would be an option - except that it's outdated and stupid, and besides that OS2 boot manager refuses to boot the drive. Boot manager reckons the drive has corrupted partition information, and I happen to know that it definitely does not. As far as I am aware BIOS cannot boot off a drive with more than 1024 cylinders anyway - unless the BIOS cheats by using LBA and pretending that the drive has 64 odd heads instead of the couple that are actually there.

Someone should really talk some sense into these drive people, there is evidence of faulty logic here somewhere, and there is nothing more appalling than faulty logic.

It is quite a new drive, and uses DMA access (it really actually does - which is quite unusual), and is also probably irrelevant anyway.
Perhaps someone could tell me how I can inform Linux that the BIOS would like to have 675 cylinders instead of 2553.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards All,
Craig Main
(B.Sc. Hons)
+27 (11) 463-2645(H)
+Very Busy+ (W)

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PS: "The only real valuable thing is intuition." - Albert (You know who)
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