Re: BIOS Geometry question.

[Andrew Clausen]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 02:35:17PM +0000, Matthew Stanfield wrote:
> Sorry if this is a 'novice' question concerning partitioning with parted.
> 
> I've been having problems installing Linux (RedHat 7.2); on my system I get
> the following error during install:
> 
> running /sbin/loader
> failed to read /modules/module-info
> install exited abnormally

This is strange.

> Feedback from a redhat mailing list suggested I get rid of my Win 2000
> partition (I had only one partition on the system a Win 2000 NTFS).

I don't see how this is relevant to the above problem.
It looks like a bug in Red Hat, or some other problem.

> Now I want to use parted to create a partion(s) to install
> Linux on to.

Why not use Red Hat's installer to do this?

> But the documentation warns:
> 
> "Parted can usually detect if Linux has detected the incorrect geometry. 
> However, it cannot do this if there are no partitions on the disk.  In 
> this case, you should check yourself.  It is very important that you do 
> this."

If you have LBA support in your BIOS, and only use Linux,
it isn't important.  (But, this may not be the case)

> When I start parted it tell me that:
> 
> "Linux thinks geometry of /dev/hda/ is 784/255/63"
> 
> But my BIOS says my ('hda') hard disk has these settings:
> autoconfigured
> cylinders:  12496
> heads:      16
> sectors:    63
> max cap:    6150MB
> 
> Does this mean I should pass the following parameter to Linux?
> 
> "hda=12496,16,63"

Yes.

> The documentation does not specify how to format this "hda=xxx" line.

Section 3.1.1 gives a long explanation.

> I am assuming that having set the "hda=xxx", I should start parted ("parted
> /dev/hda") and then create a partition like this:
> 
> mkpart primary ext2 0.0 6150.375
> 
> or create a partition with a filesystem like this:
> 
> mkpartfs primary ext2 0.0 6150.375
> 
> Note when I run the parted command 'print' it says:
> "Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-6150.375 megabytes"
> So the above mkpart and mkpartfs would be creating one partition taking up
> all available space.
> 
> I am unsure as to whether to use mkpart or mkpartfs in these circumstances
> and if the commands are what I need to be able to install Linux onto the
> new partition?

You can do either (or nothing).  I don't see why you're putting yourself
through this pain anyway... the installer will figure out all this
stuff automatically.

Eventually, you need a partition + file system, so mkpartfs is
equivalent to "what you need", but you don't need to do anything
at all with Parted.

Andrew