Re: 2.4.x kernels, big ide disks and old bios

> # cat /proc/ide/hdc/settings
> name                    value           min             max             mode
> ----                    -----           ---             ---             ----
> bios_cyl                119150          0               65535           rw
> bios_head               16              0               255             rw
> bios_sect               63              0               63              rw

> What's the meaning of the 65535 max limit in bios_cyl?

It is meaningless.

(Maybe there was some meaning long ago, for example because
HDIO_GETGEO only uses a 16-bit field for #cyls.
These days bios_cyl is not used anywhere. Not in the kernel,
not in user space. It is just some random number, computed
by taking disk-size / (heads*secs).)