Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-06,: Re: Detecting BIG ( 17.2 GB ) hard drives under Linux

# Re: Detecting BIG ( 17.2 GB ) hard drives under Linux

Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 02:17:28 +0100 (MET)

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From hugov@tr.comm.mot.com Fri Feb 11 20:57:12 2000

[Shame on you - very bad manners to publish private letters.]

[root@eagle] dmesg |grep hdb
hdb: WDC WD172AA, 8063MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=4095/64/63
hdb: hdb1 hdb2

[root@eagle] hdparm -i /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

Model=WDC WD172AA, FwRev=82.10A82, SerialNo=WD-WM6910086788
RawCHS=4092/16/63
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=-66060037, LBA=yes
LBA CHS=1023/256/63 Remapping, LBA=yes, LBAsects=33687360

Very good.

(First of all, you are using a broken hdparm.
As if we do not have sufficiently many different geometries
to worry about, this hdparm invent a "LBA CHS" unrelated to
what the disk or the BIOS or Linux uses - a private hdparm
geometry. Nobody knows what purpose this could have.)

Next, you have an interesting disk. It is 17.2 GB
and CurCHS follows the convention of reporting 16383/16/63
(good for 8.5 GB when taken literally) for a large disk,
but RawCHS reports 4092/16/63, good for 2.1 GB.

Unusual. Did you explicitly jumper this disk in this way?
Ancient BIOSes cannot handle C of 4096 or larger, and that is
why many disks still have a jumper setting to restrict it to
a geometry like 4092/16/63, but by default it is never enabled.

My memory is bad, and I already forgot what your problem was.
For the time being my conjecture is that you use an incorrect
jumper setting, one of which Western Digital warns only to
use it together with the disk manager EZ Drive.

If that is true, perhaps you should change the jumper.
But in case your disk does not have this jumper, or in case
you need it because you have a very old BIOS I can send you
a kernel patch.

Andries

P.S.

By the way, let me warn you, Western Digital reports:

"Hard Drive Quality Alert -- WD Caviar --
Limited recall issued on Caviar Drives

During extensive quality testing procedures, Western Digital has
identified a hardware issue that affects a very specific group of WD
Caviar 5400 RPM EIDE hard drives. ...
Affected Model Numbers:
...
WD172AA (17.2 GB)
..."

So, maybe you want to check whether this applies to you,
and possibly take action. This however is entirely unrelated
to geometry questions. See
http://www.wdc.com/fitness/drive-alertPC.html

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- Next message: David S. Miller: "Re: Consistent PCI - API change needed"
- Previous message: Dunlap, Randy: "Problems with USB from late 2.3.x kernels and BP6 in MPS 1.4 mode"
- Maybe in reply to: Hugo L. Varotto: "Detecting BIG ( 17.2 GB ) hard drives under Linux"