Hard drive not detected properly by linux: SOLVED (maybe)

[Matthew Carpenter]

In my experience, using a boot-preparation software like the one from
Maxtor is a bad thing with Linux.  The BIOS generally will screw up how a
HD looks, so different utils in Linux will show them differently,
depending on whether the software checks the BIOS or the HD itself.  That
said, typically Linux has been able to handle drives that the BIOS can't. 
At that point, I have been forced to put the huge drive as something other
than /dev/hda (Primary Master), and boot off a dinky drive.  I can install
the OS where-ever, but the bootloader goes on the dinky drive, because the
BIOS knows how to boot to it.  One of the best (succinct) references I've
read (aside from my own bedtime reading PC Boot Process... achemm..  Just
kidding) is the Linux System Administrator's Guide, as provided by
TLDP.org.


On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 19:56:22 -0400
"Joel Hammer" <Joel at hammershome.com> wrote:

> No, that's no typo. That is a straight cut and past from sysinfo.
> 
> I am making progress. I put my new drive into position hdb (second
> drive, and all is going well. fdisk now reported the same parameters has
> the other, almost identical drive. I used fdisk to partition it, then
> moved it back to hdd, and fdisk now reports the proper information.
> I am mkfs'ing and hope to have this thing working soon.
> I guess there is a difference between hda, hdb vs hdc and hdd.
> My third 80 gig drive, in hdc, was prepared with the maxtor software.
> Maybe that's why it works in hdc.
> 
> Joel
> On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 04:31:39PM -0700, Ted Ozolins wrote:
> > On Sunday 14 July 2002 13:16, Joel Hammer wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > Hard disk 2  : /dev/hdb
> > >    Model     : MAXTOR 6L080J4
> > >    Serial No : 664132556833
> > >    Capacity  : 76340 MB
> > >    Cache     : 1819 KB
> > >    CHS (log) : 9732 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors
> > >    CHS (phy) : 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors
> > > Hard disk 4  : /dev/hdd
> > >    Model     : MAXTOR 6L080L4
> > >    Serial No : 664209711463
> > >    Capacity  : 11833 MB
> > >    Cache     : 1819 KB
> > >    CHS (log) : 24042 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors  
> > >    <----------------- CHS (phy) : 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63
> > >    sectors  <-----------------
> > 
> > Are these last two lines a typo? If not you have a definate problem
> > here. How can the physical and the log have the same heads and sectors
> > but diferent cyl's?
> > 
> > Ted Ozolins (VE7TVO)
> > Westbank, B. C.
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Linux-users mailing list -
> > http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
> > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the
> > above URL.
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-users mailing list -
> http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the
> above URL.