Re: Disk Geometries reported incorrectly on 2.6.0-testX

From: Szakacsits Szabolcs <szaka@sienet.hu>
To: Andries Brouwer <aebr@win.tue.nl>
Cc: Andrew Clausen <clausen@gnu.org>, Apurva Mehta <apurva@gmx.net>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	bug-parted@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Disk Geometries reported incorrectly on 2.6.0-testX
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:10:36 +0200 (MET DST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0311301210540.2329@ua178d119.elisa.omakaista.fi> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20031130003428.GA5465@win.tue.nl>

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Andries Brouwer wrote:

> Just ask yourself this question: does Windows XP require a bootable
> partition to start below the 1024 cylinder mark?
> Windows NT4 has such a restriction. Not Windows 2000 or XP.

Wrong:
	http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282191

> > > Usually booting goes like this: the BIOS reads sector 0 (the MBR)
> > > from the first disk, and starts the code found there. What happens
> > > afterwards is up to that code. If that code uses CHS units to find
> > > a partition, and if the program that wrote the table has different
> > > ideas about those units than the BIOS, booting may fail.
> > Exactly.
> Good. We agree.

I'm glad also. So what actually [cs]fdisk do with the CHS entries in the
partition table? Ignore them? Might they convert a given partition start to
different CHS units if the partition entry was deleted then recreated at
the same cylinder? 

AFAIS, parted tries hard not to break these [IMHO correctly], right Andrew?

	Szaka