Re: CHS confusion

[Andrew Clausen]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 01:34:03PM -0600, Rick Jenkins wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am a little confused by the treatment of the disk CHS parameters in
> parted. The documentation in USER 3.1.1 clearly shows how to inform Linux
> what the BIOS CHS settings are, if these do not match the autodetected
> values. Unfortunately, when using the boot disk, there seems to be no way
> to do this. If the boot disk detects a CHS which does not match the BIOS,
> is this important when the disk is in LBA mode anyway?

No.  But, "LBA mode" isn't a state of the disk.  *software* chooses
which to use.  So, you must make sure everything is using LBA.  (boot
loader, and windows if you have it... linux doesn't use the BIOS at all)

Anyway, if your BIOS doesn't let you see/modify this, then you probably
have nothing to worry about.  If you have windows, make sure the "lba"
flag is set.  From parted:

        (parted) set [partition-number] lba on

If everything still works, then you should have no problems :)
(lilo and grub usually use lba on default installs nowadays)

> If so, what can be
> done about it? I don't even seem to be able to mount the boot floppy, as
> it has an unknown file system.

The root file system on the floppy is compressed... it's not too easy to
get at manually.

Andrew