Bug 160

From my understanding these lines

hda: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=969/128/63,DMA
hdb: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=969/128/63,DMA
hdc: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=7752/16/63,DMA
...
partition check:
  hda: [969/128/63] hda1
  hdb: [969/128/63] hdb1
  hdc: [PTBL] [969/128/63] hdc1<hdc5, hdc6>

are basically saying is that the hard drive geometry that is stored in
the partition table is disagreeing with waht the BIOS itself is
reporting. Before we continue I would double check that the BIOS is
set at LBA on all three drives and not just the first two. I would
choose NONE in all of the ide devices under standard CMOS setup. Then
go to the IDE AUTODETECTION part and make sure LBA is manually
selected for each of the drives. The try the install again to see if
you get the same information.

I did as you described.  Instead of using auto dectection I forced
the bios to use LBA.  The same problem again.  Any drives on the
secondary channel are detected by the kernel in normal mode not LBA.
Win98/NT have no problem (that's whats on HDA and HDB - so I know
it's not the motherboard bios - ASUS P2L97 with lastest bios).  I
also tried using RH 5.1 it also has the same problem.

The boot sequence displays the follows:
"
hda: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=969/128/63,DMA
hdb: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=969/128/63,DMA
hdc: WDC AC34000L, 3815MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=7752/16/63,DMA
...
partition check:
  hda: hda1
  hdb: hdb1
  hdc:    <--> if no partitions defined OR
  hdc: [PTBL] [969/128/63] hdc1<hdc5, hdc6> <--> defined extended in
dos
"

Again, if there are no partitions on HDC then druid/fdisk will report
that there are > 1024 cyls.  If there are partitions created by
another OS (like dos) then druid/fdisk will work with the drive and
partitions with no problem.

Did this drive originally have any disk management software loaded on
it such as EzDrive or OnTrack disk management? If so then you could
use a low level utility to clean out the first sectors of the drive
which will wipe out any partition information that may be lingering
around and then create the new partitions with linux fdisk during the
install. Also if we could know what BIOS your motherboard has on it
such as Award Bios (most common) or AMI bios. This could also be
helpful.

There is no disk management software loaded on the drives.  The bios
is already capable of doing LBA transalations.
I'm using an ASUS P2L97 motherboard with an award bios.  The bios is
at the most current level support by ASUS.

If you put the hdc drive on the primary IDE port instead, does it get
detected properly? That is, is this problem specific to the drive or
the fact that it is set up to be hdc rather than hdb/hda?

First, I have 3 identical drives.  I have tried swapping them around.
Any drive that is on the secondary channel is detected in normal node
instead of LBA.  It is not a problem with the motherboard because
dos/Win95/Win98/WintNT will work with the drive correctly.  Also when
the bios detects the drives they are all detected in LBA mode.  It
appears that the kernel has a problem with the secondary channel.

One thing that I noticed is that you did not mention where you were
putting the /boot Linux partition.  You are going to need to locate
that on 1 of the 2 drives that are on your primary channel.  This will
allow you to boot your Linux installtion.  As for the drive
recoginition during installtion, the kernal is in effect ignoring the
stats of the drives on the secondary channel, as those drives cannot
be used to boot the system.  The fact that LBA mode is or is not being
recognized by Linux is not really a concern, as the only thing the
lack of LBA mode is going to cause problems during is accessing those
drives from other operating sytems, not from within Linux.

> Last comments:
> One thing that I noticed is that you did not mention where you were
> putting the /boot Linux partition.  You are going to need to locate
> that on 1 of the 2 drives that are on your primary channel.This will
> allow you to boot your Linux installtion.  As for the drive
> recoginition during installtion, the kernal is in effect ignoring
> the stats of the drives on the secondary channel, as those drives
> cannot be used to boot the system.

No that is incorrect.  I'm using PowerQuest's boot manager which
allows linux to boot from the secondary channel.  Lilo is installed
on hdc(hdc5).

> The fact that LBA mode is or is not being recognized by Linux is
> not really a concern, as the only thing the lack of LBA mode is
> going to cause problems during is accessing those
> drives from other operating sytems, not from within Linux.

Yes it is a concern.  If the drive on the secondary channel has no
partitions already defined then when I use disk druid/fdisk on linux
they report that there are more than 1024 cyls and attempts to
partition the drive are incorrect because it is partitioned without
LBA translation.  But if the drive has partitions on it already then
the druid/fdisk can add or delete partition correctly.
Question: Have you guys tried putting an IDE drive on the secondary
channel as describe in the original opening of the problem.  I'm not
sure why we are discussing booting linux when the problem is simply
drives on the secondary channel do not get recognized by Linux
correctly.  Win95/98/NT have no problem with the secondary channel.

We have been able to verify the problem in the testlab with the
following configuration.

1.2 GB IDE primary
4.0 GB IDE secondary

the bios info for the secondary controller isnt readily available
for the kernel to access according to a developer.

if you need to set geometries set them when you fdisk the drive
(expert mode) - the kernel trusts the partition table above all else.
Or you can just use hdc=ccc,hh,ss on the command line and this will
also work. Then you can add it to your lilo.conf file to make it
permanent.

LBA addressing isn't easy to get for drives other than primary.  Under
Linux you don't really need it anyway.