Re: [RESEND] Hard disk LBA sector count is not always the same

[DervishD <lkml@dervishd.net>]

    Hi Petr :)

    Thanks for your answer :)

 * Petr Vandrovec <vandrove@vc.cvut.cz> dixit:
> >>DervishD wrote:
> >>>  current capacity is 156299375
> >>>  native capacity is 156301488
> >>Hard drives have a feature that can reserve a certain amount of space 
> >>away from the user.
> >    Yes, I know, but the problem is that 2.4 kernels *does* reserve
> >that space but 2.6 certainly not, and if I boot into 2.6 and then
> >reboot into 2.4, then 2.4 *does NOT* reserve that space.
> Yes.  It is normal...

    I'm surprised :??? Does 2.6 'stroking' by default? I supposed
that maybe Debian people had activated stroking...
 
> >    See the paragraph above: if I partition the disk under 2.6 the
> >partition will have a bigger address than the one that will be
> >available under 2.4, and that can give errors while accessing that
> >extra sectors. What can I do? For technical limitations in my box, I
> >have to use 2.6 for repartitioning that disk (and I will be doing
> >that in less than a month) and this will lead to unaccesible sectors
> >when I boot back into my usual 2.4 kernel :(
> (1) You do not have to create partition over full disk.

    I would prefer to do it. Otherwise I have to calculate where the
partition must end in order to not disturb the kernel. Moreover, in
that space will go the swap partition, probably...
 
> (2) If you'll build your 2.4.x kernel with CONFIG_IDEDISK_STROKE=y
> ('Auto-Geometry Resizing support'), I bet that your problems with 2.4.x
> kernels disappear.

    I'll try right now... YES, it works!. I don't understand, my BIOS
is AMI, not Awards, and I assumed that the stroke option was used
only for Awards BIOS'es. I've looked at the code in the kernel and it
doesn't seem to be particular for Award :?? It should be specified in
the documentation.

    Thanks a lot for your suggestion and for solving my problem :)

    Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado

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