Re: 137GB barrier - multi O/S install problem

Conrad <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

> I recently managed to scrape enough pennies to rebuild my lightning-bit
> workstation. Motherboard ECS KM400-M2 (rev 3.0) HD wd1600JB, 160gb.

> I created a small NTFS partition (8gb) for Win2k,

You need to ensure that Win2K has 48
bit LBA enabled for a drive over 137G.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q305098

> and a few more 30gb FAT32 partitions to share with FreeBSD and Linux, which
> also need to go on this box. Then I noticed a problem. Windows was only
> showing 137GB for the drive size in system informatien.

See above.

> I looked in the BIOS and found the following geometry:
> C/H/S is 65535/16/255, which adds up to about 137gb.

What matters is what it shows the size as in the black bios
screen at boot time. Looks like you need to update the bios too.

> I then attempted to install FreeBSD which immediately complained
> of bad geometry and enforces a C/H/S of 19457/255/63.
> (which is much closer to the 160gb I paid for) FreeBSD apparently ignores (?)
> BIOS and queries the HD directly.

Yep.

> While I know FreeBSD will happily run drives much larger than the BIOS will
> support, that is on systems dedicated to FreeBSD - mine needs to play nice
> with Windows.

Then you need to enable 48 bit LBA in Win.

> Questions: Deos anyone know if I can happily accept the FreeBSD geometry, or
> will FreeBSD write things in the partition table that will screw up Windows?

Dunno, but you should fix it the other way, enable 48 bit
LBA support in Win and then that problem will go away.

> I thought somewhere is some MBR voodoo that needs some consistency in the
> cyl/head/sector geometry.

Yeah, some of the partition managers will chuck a wobbly about it.

> Further, because Windows apparently believes the limited BIOS
> geometry, and since FreeBSD is apparently more correct, what happens to the
> FAT32 partitions that I want to write to from either O/S?

They'll be fine while ever they are below the 137G boundary.

You'll have a problem using the full size of the drive and you
will get the drive wrapping around in some situations and that
will wipe out the partitions on the front of the drive.

> Should I wipe the whole disk and use FreeBSDs FDisk utility to create the NTFS
> and FAT32 partitions?

You still need to enable 48 bit LBS in Win, so you
might as well just wipe the drive and recreate the
partitions again in Win after you have done that.

> I've taken a look at the addressing modes available in BIOS:

> LBA: Cyl - 16643, Heads - 255, Sectors - 63 = 136893335040 bytes
> Large: Cyl - 4095, Heads - 240, Sectors - 255 = 128314368000 bytes
> CHS: Cyl - 65535, Heads - 16, Sectors - 255 = 136899993600

> Auto, which is what I had when I installed Win2K apparetly uses CHS,

Nope, it just fakes that up. It still has to use LBA for a drive that large.

> at least the geometry reported by Auto matches - but none of the options gets
> past 137gb

You need to update the bios.


.

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