Re: tlug: Sun disk label fdisk/SCSI question

[Scott Stone <sstone@example.com>]

On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, Tim Meggs wrote:

> From: Rex Walters <rex@example.com>
> Subject: Re: tlug: Sun disk label fdisk/SCSI question
> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 23:33:29 +0900
> 
> > The common practice these days is to use 64 heads, 32 sectors per track
> > (1 MB per cylinder).  Then just set the number of cylinders to the size
> 
> Good to know - this explains why my x86 linux machine's SCSI HDs got the
> afore mentioned settings during installation.    I wonder why linux on sun 
> h/w doesn't default to the same.

Because Suns don't have wonky bios limitations like x86 machines do.  The
reason why the 64head/32cyl mapping exists is because without it, programs
that use the BIOS for disk geometry (ie, LILO, MS-DOS, Win95) can't see
more than about 500 megs of the disk.

--------------------------------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com, sstone@example.com>
               <sstone@example.com>
Linux Developer/Systems Administrator for Pacific HiTech, Inc. 
http://www.pht.com		http://armadillo.pht.co.jp
http://www.pht.co.jp	        http://www.turbolinux.com


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