[Gllug] LBA Formatting

[Chris Bell]

On Sat 27 Dec, t.clarke wrote:
> 
> I am speaking totally from memory, but I have a feeling that it is the system
> BIOS that determines whether the disc is 'presented' to the Operating System
> initially in LBA mode or not.    If the fdisk info show lots of heads then I
> believe it must be in LBA mode as it is highly unlikely that the disc will
> have physically the number of heads shown.  As far as I am aware all modern
> discs and bioses will use LBA mode by default as its the only way to address
> large drives.
> 
> Tim

   Thanks, that ties up with reality, but I was not convinced that the CHS
data would give the real number of sectors available. It seems that Linux
uses the start and either size or end information, but then possibly uses
CHS calculations to keep other OS's happy, although there is an option to
maximise use of the available space and minimise the number of unused
sectors.

-- 
Chris Bell NEW alternative address: chrisbell at chrisbell.org.uk
Microsoft sells you Windows ... Linux gives you the whole house.

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