[sclug] Re: booting / large hard drive nightmare
James Wyper
jrwyper at yahoo.co.uk
Sun Oct 24 13:40:38 UTC 2004
Apologies for the delay in replying: full-time job, two kids etc.
(1) My IBM Bios doesn't report C/H/S information
(2) Without Ontrack, the relevant information from bootup (transcribed
by hand; dmesg didn't work without Ontrack) is
hdb: setmax LBA 156301488 native 66055244
[in other words, somehow it can "see" the full 80G but then chooses to
ignore it]
hdb: 66055244 sectors (33820MB) w/2048KiB cache CHS=4111/255/63
UDMA(33)
Partition check:
[a line for hda, the 3.2G disk, then]
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/tgt1/lun0 <6> [DM6:DDO] [remap+63] [4111/255/63] p1
p2 <p5>
I think the [DM6:DDO] and remap clauses are there because the kernel
has detected the existence of Ontrack on hdb (and noted that the
partition table will have been moved because of it?)
(3) /proc/partitions (without Ontrack):
major minor #blocks name
3 0 3153024 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
3 1 3152992 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
3 64 33027590 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc
3 65 3156741 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1
3 66 1 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part2
3 69 74445178 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part5
(4) geometry:
physical 65530/16/63
logical 4111/255/63
(5) WITH Ontrack, the differences are
dmesg (now working again) has
hdb: setmax LBA 156301488 native 156301487
hdb: 156301487 sectors (80026MB) w/2048KiB cache CHS=9729/255/63
UDMA(33)
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/tgt1/lun0 <6> [DM6:DDO] [remap+63] [9729/255/63] p1
p2 <p5> <p6>
[you'll note my swap partition, which resides towards the end of hdb,
has reappeared]
partition and geometry info from /proc are:
major minor #blocks name
3 0 3153024 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
3 1 3152992 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
3 64 78150712 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc
3 65 3156741 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1
3 66 1 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part2
3 69 74445178 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part5
3 70 546147 ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part6
physical 155060/16/63
logical 9729/255/63
I have previously tried adding append=hdb=9729,255,63 (with and without
the remap option) without success. Should I try the physical geometry
figures instead?
>From a bit of random googling it looks like having
CONFIG_IDEDISK_STROKE switched on in my kernel **may** help (I'm using
the stock Mandrake kernel, which doesn't have it). So I'll try a
recompile...
Thanks,
James.
--- Graham Swallow <lists at Information-Cascade.co.uk> wrote:
>
> The answer might be REALLY simple,
> setting the geometry in LILO as a kernel parameter
>
> hdb=1024,16,32 <-- but with the correct numbers!
>
> You need to examine your existing system, so see what the case is:
>
> James Wyper wrote:
> > manager isn't loaded, but then be unable to see most of hdb5 and
> any of
> > hdb6 (i.e. beyond 33GB) (so a lot of the processes that should be
> > spawned from init aren't). When I first installed Mandrake the
> > partitioning process reported a 33GB drive not an 80GB one, until I
> > loaded the disk manager first.
>
> That sounds like not detecting the disk geometry properly.
> This is archeology, *maybe* IDE is different from EIDE-ATA,
> and in THAT case the kernel uses the C/H/S from the bios,
> (I thought it asked the disk, not the controller).
>
> (1) Without OnTrack 'press-del-for-setup' to get bios.
>
> What is the reported Cylinder/Heads/Sectors
>
> (2) Without Ontrack, the geometry appears in the kernel boot,
> Press ScrollLock (or is it Pause - I forget) then Shift-PgUp
> Or after boot run 'dmesg | less'
>
> ...
> Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
> ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
> idebus=xx
> SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:00.1
> SIS5513: chipset revision 208
> SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
> SIS5513: SiS530 ATA 66 controller
> ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
> ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
> hda: Maxtor 92040U6, ATA DISK drive
> blk: queue c034f440, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
> hdc: Maxtor 92041U4, ATA DISK drive
> hdd: BCD E520C, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
> blk: queue c034f8ac, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
> ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
> ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
> hda: attached ide-disk driver.
> hda: host protected area => 1
> hda: 39882528 sectors (20420 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=2482/255/63,
> UDMA(66)
> hdc: attached ide-disk driver.
> hdc: host protected area => 1
> hdc: 40020624 sectors (20491 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=39703/16/63,
> UDMA(33)
> hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver.
> hdd: ATAPI 40X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, UDMA(33)
> Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
> Partition check:
> hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >
> hdc: hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 < hdc5 >
> ...
>
> FOR ME that shows that hda says it has 255 heads,
> hdc has 16 heads. Both say 63 sectors-per-track.
> Thats historical residue, from the maximum number of
> bits held by the BIOS. The disk varies in geometry,
> but has a nice story to tell the BIOS. Some bios's
> have limits of 1024/16/32, but over time it all changed.
> The actual number of platters is different.
>
> (3) cat /proc/partitions (Without OnTrack)
>
> major minor #blocks name rio rmerge rsect ruse wio wmerge wsect
> wuse runni
>
> 22 0 20010312 hdc 4995 16054 106285 99420 1563 1938 27834
> 9850 -3 176963
> 22 1 4194760 hdc1 11 0 11 20 0 0 0 0 0 20 20
> 22 2 10486224 hdc2 863 9469 20664 27850 25 12 74 150 0 15860
> 28000
> 22 3 1 hdc3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 22 5 5329264 hdc5 4119 6579 85594 71520 1538 1926 27760 9700
> 0 45290 81
> 3 0 19941264 hda 1878 14420 32587 18650 37 126 326 30 -3
> 1785940 428983
> 3 1 2096482 hda1 11 0 11 20 0 0 0 0 0 20 20
> 3 2 10584 hda2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 3 3 4021256 hda3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 3 4 1 hda4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 3 5 2096482 hda5 15 56 142 40 4 0 8 0 0 40 40
> 3 6 2096451 hda6 1641 13643 30568 14020 29 126 310 30 0
> 8830 14050
> 3 7 9598806 hda7 207 709 1834 4510 4 0 8 0 0 1520 4510
>
> You only want the first #blocks.
> The rest is for monitoring access counts.
>
> (4) cat /proc/ide/ide1/hdc/geometry
>
> physical 39703/16/63
> logical 39703/16/63
>
> (5) And again WITH OnTrack
>
> Are they different?
>
> My theory, is that OnTrack have a low-level (NDA) trick
> that makes your IBM bios write the C/H/S differently
> into the MB circuitry (BIOS), as well as the fdisk
> sectors, and somehow Linux doesnt get past them to
> 'the truth' (A feature, really, if you look wider).
>
> EG it might be a 16-bit CMOS register with 32 bit value
>
> (6) IF THATS THE DIFFERENCE, Set the geometry at boot:
>
> LILO> linux hdb=1024,16,32
>
> (6b) In /etc/lilo.conf
>
> append="hdb=1024,16,32"
>
> See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/ide.txt
>
> (7) fdisk -l /dev/hdc (not a suggested layout)
>
> Disk /dev/hdc: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 39703 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hdc1 * 1 8323 4194760+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
> /dev/hdc2 8324 29129 10486224 83 Linux
> /dev/hdc3 29130 39703 5329296 5 Extended
> /dev/hdc5 29130 39703 5329264+ 83 Linux
>
>
> > I have also tried a recent ATA100 PCI card and that didn't work
> either.
> > It's because I've exhausted these possibilities that I'm turning
> to
> > workarounds.
>
> This is because Linux is correctly driving the IDE hardware
> you have, and the EIDE hardware is much the same.
>
> That card is likely to show a big improvement in speed though,
> as would a good (expensive - twice as many wires) cable.
>
> It MIGHT be that the PCI card uses EIDE drive enquiry, not BIOS,
> but now conflicts with how the drive was already fdisk/formatted.
>
> ALSO:
>
> whilst in IDE RTFM mode, lookup:
>
> ext3:
> you must have ext3 in kernel or module
> tune2fs -j /dev/hda7
> vi /etc/fstab
>
> hdparm:
>
> timeout=240 # 240/12 = 20 Minutes (5 sec)
> timeout=241 # 1*30 = 30 Minutes
>
> hdparm -c 3 -d 1 -S $timeout -u 1 -W 1 /dev/hda
> hdparm -c 3 -d 1 -S $timeout -u 1 -W 1 /dev/hdc
>
>
>
> > gd@ said:
> >
> > Hmm. Remind me to check the access permissions on my brain --- your
> message
> > was much too similar to mine than is strictly comfortable!
> >
>
> This might have been a part of the telepathy module in earlier
> kernel releases, and documentation modules. Over time the
> infused data merges deeper, as if: chmod g+w memory
>
> ALSO:
>
> I use 100MB because a ZIP disk is 95MB, and because it opens
> up boot options (lots of initrd's, boot_root's, common configs)
> I put /etc/lilo.conf onto that partition (symb link), so that
> multi-boot machines share what they share.
>
> --
> Graham
> 0118 975 6229
> http://www.Information-Cascade.co.uk
> gps (at) Information-Cascade (dot) co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> sclug mailing list
> sclug at sclug.org.uk
> http://www.sclug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sclug
>
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
More information about the Sclug
mailing list