Re: [PATCH] make kernel ignore bogus partitions

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

On Iau, 2006-05-11 at 09:27 -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> "Mike Miller (OS Dev)" <mikem@beardog.cca.cpqcorp.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 12:41:38PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > "Mike Miller (OS Dev)" <mikem@beardog.cca.cpqcorp.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Patch 1/1
> > > > Sometimes partitions claim to be larger than the reported capacity of a
> > > > disk device. This patch makes the kernel ignore those partitions.

The problem with ignoring such partitions is that you will then get
burned on some PC setups and also that existing partitions may move
number on some partitioning schemes.

Allocating them but setting the reported size to zero would cure the
latter problem, but I'm not sure what the right thing to do is about
extended partition tables that look like this

0 Partition Table
  Bootblock
  ...
  Extended Partition to disk end
  Partition
HPA-------------------------- (reported disk size)
  Suspend partition
  BIOS bits
disk end -----

ie /dev/hda5 might be valid but not /dev/hda4 which contains it...