Re: [PATCH] IDE disks show invalid geometries in /proc/ide/hd*/geometry

Jan Engelhardt
2005-08-04T06:04:15Z

>Simple: do not use BIOS values.
>[ Yes, there should be some warning from kernel. ]

On that matter, I get a warning from LILO wrt cyls and stuff:

07:47 spectre:~ # cat /proc/ide/hda/geometry
physical 16383/16/63
logical 65535/16/63
07:58 spectre:~ # lilo
Warning: Kernel & BIOS return differing head/sector geometries for device 0x80
Kernel: 65535 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors
BIOS: 1023 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors
Added linux *
07:59 spectre:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders

All of these numbers are virtual, since CHS is not really used anymore, as
we know. But, which of these fake CHS values (16383/16/63 | 65535/16/63 |
1023/255/63) is the right one? 255/63/4982 is another matter, since it
[almost] matches the actual size of the disk while the other three are just
"for the bios".

Jan Engelhardt
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