  Large Disk HOWTO
  Andries Brouwer, aeb@cwi.nl
  v2.2d, 12 September 1999

  All about disk geometry and the 1024 cylinder limit for disks.

  1.  The problem

  Suppose you have a disk with more than 1024 cylinders.  Suppose
  moreover that you have an operating system that uses the old INT13
  BIOS interface to disk I/O.  Then you have a problem, because this
  interface uses a 10-bit field for the cylinder on which the I/O is
  done, so that cylinders 1024 and past are inaccessible.

  Fortunately, Linux does not use the BIOS, so there is no problem.

  Well, except for two things:

  (1) When you boot your system, Linux isn't running yet and cannot save
  you from BIOS problems.  This has some consequences for LILO and
  similar boot loaders.

  (2) It is necessary for all operating systems that use one disk to
  agree on where the partitions are.  In other words, if you use both
  Linux and, say, DOS on one disk, then both must interpret the
  partition table in the same way.  This has some consequences for the
  Linux kernel and for fdisk.

  Below a rather detailed description of all relevant details.  Note
  that I used kernel version 2.0.8 source as a reference.  Other
  versions may differ a bit.



  2.  Summary

  You got a new large disk. What to do? Well, on the software side: use
  fdisk (or, better, cfdisk) to create partitions, and then mke2fs to
  create a filesystem, and then mount to attach the new filesystem to
  the big file hierarchy.

  You need not read this HOWTO since there are no problems with large
  hard disks these days. The great majority of apparent problems is
  caused by people who think there might be a problem and install a disk
  manager, or go into fdisk expert mode, or specify explicit disk
  geometries to LILO or on the kernel command line.

  However, typical problem areas are: (i) ancient hardware, (ii) several
  operating systems on the same disk, and sometimes (iii) booting.

  Advice:

  For large SCSI disks: Linux has supported them from very early on.  No
  action required.

  For large IDE disks: get a recent stable kernel (2.0.34 or later).
  Usually, all will be fine now, especially if you were wise enough not
  to ask the BIOS for disk translations like LBA and the like.

  If LILO hangs at boot time, also specify linear in the configuration
  file /etc/lilo.conf.

  There may be geometry problems that can be solved by giving an
  explicit geometry to kernel/LILO/fdisk.


  If you have an old fdisk and it warns about ``overlapping''
  partitions: ignore the warnings, or check using cfdisk that really all
  is well.

  If you think something is wrong with the size of your disk, make sure
  that you are not confusing binary and decimal ``'', and realize that
  the free space that df reports on an empty disk is a few percent
  smaller than the partition size, because there is administrative
  overhead.

  Now, if you still think there are problems, or just are curious, read
  on.


  3.  Units and Sizes

  A kilobyte (kB) is 1000 bytes.  A megabyte (MB) is 1000 kB.  A
  gigabyte (GB) is 1000 MB.  A terabyte (TB) is 1000 GB.  This is the SI
  norm.  However, there are people that use 1 MB=1024000 bytes and talk
  about 1.44 MB floppies, and people who think that 1 MB=1048576 bytes.
  Here I follow the proposed standard and write Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti for the
  binary units, so that these floppies are 1440 KiB (1.47 MB, 1.41 MiB),
  1 MiB is 1048576 bytes (1.05 MB), 1 GiB is 1073741824 bytes (1.07 GB)
  and 1 TiB is 1099511627776 bytes (1.1 TB).

  Quite correctly, the disk drive manufacturers follow the SI norm and
  use the decimal units. However, Linux boot messages and some fdisk-
  type programs use the symbols MB and GB for binary, or mixed binary-
  decimal units. So, before you think your disk is smaller than was
  promised when you bought it, compute first the actual size in decimal
  units (or just in bytes).


  3.1.  Sectorsize

  In the present text a sector has 512 bytes. This is almost always
  true, but for example certain MO disks use a sectorsize of 2048 bytes,
  and all capacities given below must be multiplied by four.  (When
  using fdisk on such disks, make sure you have version 2.9i or later,
  and give the `-b 2048' option.)


  3.2.  Disksize

  A disk with C cylinders, H heads and S sectors per track has C*H*S
  sectors in all, and can store C*H*S*512 bytes.  For example, if the
  disk label says C/H/S=4092/16/63 then the disk has 4092*16*63=4124736
  sectors, and can hold 4124736*512=2111864832 bytes (2.11 GB).  There
  is an industry convention to give C/H/S=16383/16/63 for disks larger
  than 8.4 GB, and the disk size can no longer be read off from the
  C/H/S values reported by the disk.


  4.  Disk Access

  In order to read or write something from or to the disk, we have to
  specify a position on the disk, for example by giving a sector or
  block number.  If the disk is a SCSI disk, then this sector number
  goes directly into the SCSI command and is understood by the disk.  If
  the disk is an IDE disk using LBA, then precisely the same holds.  But
  if the disk is old, RLL or MFM or IDE from before the LBA times, then
  the disk hardware expects a triple (cylinder,head,sector) to designate
  the desired spot on the disk.

  The correspondence between the linear numbering and this 3D notation
  is as follows: for a disk with C cylinders, H heads and S
  sectors/track position (c,h,s) in 3D or CHS notation is the same as
  position c*H*S + h*S + (s-1) in linear or LBA notation.  (The minus
  one is because traditionally sectors are counted from 1, not 0, in
  this 3D notation.)

  Consequently, in order to access a very old non-SCSI disk, we need to
  know its geometry, that is, the values of C, H and S.


  4.1.  BIOS Disk Access and the 1024 cylinder limit

  Linux does not use the BIOS, but some other systems do.  The BIOS,
  which predates LBA times, offers with INT13 disk I/O routines that
  have (c,h,s) as input.  (More precisely: AH selects the function to
  perform, CH is the low 8 bits of the cylinder number, CL has in bits
  7-6 the high two bits of the cylinder number and in bits 5-0 the
  sector number, DH is the head number, and DL is the drive number (80h
  or 81h).  This explains part of the layout of the partition table.)

  Thus, we have CHS encoded in three bytes, with 10 bits for the
  cylinder number, 8 bits for the head number, and 6 bits for the track
  sector number (numbered 1-63).  It follows that cylinder numbers can
  range from 0 to 1023 and that no more than 1024 cylinders are BIOS
  addressable.

  DOS and Windows software did not change when IDE disks with LBA
  support were introduced, so DOS and Windows continued needing a disk
  geometry, even when this was no longer needed for the actual disk I/O,
  but only for talking to the BIOS. This again means that Linux needs
  the geometry in those places where communication with the BIOS or with
  other operating systems is required, even on a modern disk.

  This state of affairs lasted for four years or so, and then disks
  appeared on the market that could not be addressed with the INT13
  functions (because the 10+8+6=24 bits for (c,h,s) can address not more
  than 8.5 GB) and a new BIOS interface was designed: the so-called
  Extended INT13 functions, where DS:SI points at a 16-byte Disk Address
  Packet that contains an 8-byte starting absolute block number.

  Very slowly the Microsoft world is moving towards using these Extended
  INT13 functions. Probably a few years from now no modern system on
  modern hardware will need the concept of `disk geometry' anymore.


  4.2.  History of BIOS and IDE limits


     ATA Specification (for IDE disks) - the 137 GB limit
        At most 65536 cylinders (numbered 0-65535), 16 heads (numbered
        0-15), 255 sectors/track (numbered 1-255), for a maximum total
        capacity of 267386880 sectors (of 512 bytes each), that is,
        136902082560 bytes (137 GB).  This is not yet a problem (in
        1999), but will be a few years from now.


     BIOS Int 13 - the 8.5 GB limit
        At most 1024 cylinders (numbered 0-1023), 256 heads (numbered
        0-255), 63 sectors/track (numbered 1-63) for a maximum total
        capacity of 8455716864 bytes (8.5 GB). This is a serious
        limitation today.  It means that DOS cannot use present day
        large disks.


     The 528 MB limit
        If the same values for c,h,s are used for the BIOS Int 13 call
        and for the IDE disk I/O, then both limitations combine, and one
        can use at most 1024 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, for
        a maximum total capacity of 528482304 bytes (528MB), the
        infamous 504 MiB limit for DOS with an old BIOS.  This started
        being a problem around 1993, and people resorted to all kinds of
        trickery, both in hardware (LBA), in firmware (translating
        BIOS), and in software (disk managers).  The concept of
        `translation' was invented (1994): a BIOS could use one geometry
        while talking to the drive, and another, fake, geometry while
        talking to DOS, and translate between the two.


     The 2.1 GB limit (April 1996)
        Some older BIOSes only allocate 12 bits for the field in CMOS
        RAM that gives the number of cylinders. Consequently, this
        number can be at most 4095, and only 4095*16*63*512=2113413120
        bytes are accessible.  The effect of having a larger disk would
        be a hang at boot time.  This made disks with geometry
        4092/16/63 rather popular. And still today many large disk
        drives come with a jumper to make them appear 4092/16/63.  See
        also over2gb.htm.


     The 3.2 GB limit
        There was a bug in the Phoenix 4.03 and 4.04 BIOS firmware that
        would cause the system to lock up in the CMOS setup for drives
        with a capacity over 3277 MB. See over3gb.htm.


     The 4.2 GB limit (Feb 1997)
        Simple BIOS translation (ECHS=Extended CHS, sometimes called
        `Large disk support' or just `Large') works by repeatedly
        doubling the number of heads and halving the number of cylinders
        shown to DOS, until the number of cylinders is at most 1024.
        Now DOS and Windows 95 cannot handle 256 heads, and in the
        common case that the disk reports 16 heads, this means that this
        simple mechanism only works up to 8192*16*63*512=4227858432
        bytes (with a fake geometry with 1024 cylinders, 128 heads, 63
        sectors/track).  Note that ECHS does not change the number of
        sectors per track, so if that is not 63, the limit will be
        lower.  See over4gb.htm.


     The 7.9 GB limit
        Slightly smarter BIOSes avoid the previous problem by first
        adjusting the number of heads to 15 (`revised ECHS'), so that a
        fake geometry with 240 heads can be obtained, good for
        1024*240*63*512=7927234560 bytes.


     The 8.4 GB limit

        Finally, if the BIOS does all it can to make this translation a
        success, and uses 255 heads and 63 sectors/track (`assisted LBA'
        or just `LBA') it may reach 1024*255*63*512=8422686720 bytes,
        slightly less than the earlier 8.5 GB limit because the
        geometries with 256 heads must be avoided.  (This translation
        will use for the number of heads the first value H in the
        sequence 16, 32, 64, 128, 255 for which the total disk capacity
        fits in 1024*H*63*512, and then computes the number of cylinders
        C as total capacity divided by (H*63*512).)


     The 33.8 GB limit (August 1999)
        The next hurdle comes with a size over 33.8 GB.  The problem is
        that with the default 16 heads and 63 sectors/track this
        corresponds to a number of cylinders of more than 65535, which
        does not fit into a short. Maybe no BIOS in existence today can
        handle such disks. Linux still needs a patch.

  For another discussion of this topic, see Breaking the Barriers, and,
  with more details, IDE Hard Drive Capacity Barriers.

  Hard drives over 8.4 GB are supposed to report their geometry as
  16383/16/63.  This in effect means that the `geometry' is obsolete,
  and the total disk size can no longer be computed from the geometry.




  5.  Booting

  When the system is booted, the BIOS reads sector 0 (known as the MBR -
  the Master Boot Record) from the first disk (or from floppy or CDROM),
  and jumps to the code found there - usually some bootstrap loader.
  These small bootstrap programs found there typically have no own disk
  drivers and use BIOS services.  This means that a Linux kernel can
  only be booted when it is entirely located within the first 1024
  cylinders.

  This problem is very easily solved: make sure that the kernel (and
  perhaps other files used during bootup, such as LILO map files) are
  located on a partition that is entirely contained in the first 1024
  cylinders of a disk that the BIOS can access - probably this means the
  first or second disk.

  Thus: create a small partition, say 10 MB large, so that there is room
  for a handful of kernels, making sure that it is entirely contained
  within the first 1024 cylinders of the first or second disk. Mount it
  on /boot so that LILO will put its stuff there.



  5.1.  LILO and the `linear' option

  Another point is that the boot loader and the BIOS must agree as to
  the disk geometry.  LILO asks the kernel for the geometry, but more
  and more authors of disk drivers follow the bad habit of deriving a
  geometry from the partition table, instead of telling LILO what the
  BIOS will use. Thus, often the geometry supplied by the kernel is
  worthless. In such cases it helps to give LILO the `linear' option.
  The effect of this is that LILO does not need geometry information at
  boot loader install time (it stores linear addresses in the maps) but
  does the conversion of linear addresses at boot time. Why is this not
  the default?  Well, there is one disadvantage: with the `linear'
  option, LILO no longer knows about cylinder numbers, and hence cannot
  warn you when part of the kernel was stored above the 1024 cylinder
  limit, and you may end up with a system that does not boot.


  5.2.  1024 cylinders is not 1024 cylinders

  Tim Williams writes: `I had my Linux partition within the first 1024
  cylinders and still it wouldnt boot. First when I moved it below 1 GB
  did things work.' How can that be? Well, this was a SCSI disk with
  AHA2940UW controller which uses either H=64, S=32 (that is, cylinders
  of 1 MiB = 1.05 MB), or H=255, S=63 (that is, cylinders of 8.2 MB),
  depending on setup options in firmware and BIOS. No doubt the BIOS
  assumed the former, so that the 1024 cylinder limit was found at 1
  GiB, while Linux used the latter and LILO thought that this limit was
  at 8.4 GB.


  6.  Disk geometry, partitions and `overlap'

  If you have several operating systems on your disks, then each uses
  one or more disk partitions.  A disagreement on where these partitions
  are may have catastrophic consequences.


  The MBR contains a partition table describing where the (primary)
  partitions are.  There are 4 table entries, for 4 primary partitions,
  and each looks like


       struct partition {
               char active;    /* 0x80: bootable, 0: not bootable */
               char begin[3];  /* CHS for first sector */
               char type;
               char end[3];    /* CHS for last sector */
               int start;      /* 32 bit sector number (counting from 0) */
               int length;     /* 32 bit number of sectors */
       };




  (where CHS stands for Cylinder/Head/Sector).

  This information is redundant: the location of a partition is given
  both by the 24-bit begin and end fields, and by the 32-bit start and
  length fields.

  Linux only uses the start and length fields, and can therefore handle
  partitions of not more than 2^32 sectors, that is, partitions of at
  most 2 TiB.  That is a hundred times larger than the disks available
  today, so maybe it will be enough for the next eight years or so.
  (So, partitions can be very large, but there is a serious restriction
  in that a file in an ext2 filesystem on hardware with 32-bit integers
  cannot be larger than 2 GiB.)

  DOS uses the begin and end fields, and uses the BIOS INT13 call to
  access the disk, and can therefore only handle disks of not more than
  8.4 GB, even with a translating BIOS. (Partitions cannot be larger
  than 2.1 GB because of restrictions of the FAT16 file system.) The
  same holds for Windows 3.11 and WfWG and Windows NT 3.* and Novell
  NetWare.

  Windows 95 has support for the Extended INT13 interface, and uses
  special partition types (c, e, f instead of b, 6, 5) to indicate that
  a partition should be accessed in this way.  When these partition
  types are used, the begin and end fields contain dummy information
  (1023/255/63).  Windows 95 OSR2 introduces the FAT32 file system
  (partition type b or c), that allows partitions of size at most 2 TiB.

  What is this nonsense you get from fdisk about `overlapping'
  partitions, when in fact nothing is wrong?  Well - there is something
  `wrong': if you look at the begin and end fields of such partitions,
  as DOS does, they overlap.  (And that cannot be corrected, because
  these fields cannot store cylinder numbers above 1024 - there will
  always be `overlap' as soon as you have more than 1024 cylinders.)
  However, if you look at the start and length fields, as Linux does,
  and as Windows 95 does in the case of partitions with partition type
  c, e or f, then all is well.  So, ignore these warnings when cfdisk is
  satisfied and you have a Linux-only disk. Be careful when the disk is
  shared with DOS.  Use the commands cfdisk -Ps /dev/hdx and cfdisk -Pt
  /dev/hdx to look at the partition table of /dev/hdx.


  7.  Translation and Disk Managers

  Disk geometry (with heads, cylinders and tracks) is something from the
  age of MFM and RLL. In those days it corresponded to a physical
  reality. Nowadays, with IDE or SCSI, nobody is interested in what the
  `real' geometry of a disk is.  Indeed, the number of sectors per track
  is variable - there are more sectors per track close to the outer rim
  of the disk - so there is no `real' number of sectors per track.
  Quite the contrary: the IDE command INITIALIZE DRIVE PARAMETERS (91h)
  serves to tell the disk how many heads and sectors per track it is
  supposed to have today.  It is quite normal to see a large modern disk
  that has 2 heads report 15 or 16 heads to the BIOS, while the BIOS may
  again report 255 heads to user software.

  For the user it is best to regard a disk as just a linear array of
  sectors numbered 0, 1, ..., and leave it to the firmware to find out
  where a given sector lives on the disk. This linear numbering is
  called LBA.

  So now the conceptual picture is the following.  DOS, or some boot
  loader, talks to the BIOS, using (c,h,s) notation.  The BIOS converts
  (c,h,s) to LBA notation using the fake geometry that the user is
  using. If the disk accepts LBA then this value is used for disk I/O.
  Otherwise, it is converted back to (c',h',s') using the geometry that
  the disk uses today, and that is used for disk I/O.

  Note that there is a bit of confusion in the use of the expression
  `LBA': As a term describing disk capabilities it means `Linear Block
  Addressing' (as opposed to CHS Addressing). As a term in the BIOS
  Setup, it describes a translation scheme sometimes called `assisted
  LBA' - see above under ```'''.

  Something similar works when the firmware doesn't speak LBA but the
  BIOS knows about translation.  (In the setup this is often indicated
  as `Large'.)  Now the BIOS will present a geometry (C,H,S) to the
  operating system, and use (C',H',S') while talking to the disk
  controller.  Usually S = S', C = C'/N and H = H'*N, where N is the
  smallest power of two that will ensure C' <= 1024 (so that least
  capacity is wasted by the rounding down in C' = C/N).  Again, this
  allows access of up to 8.4 GB (7.8 GiB).

  (The third setup option usually is `Normal', where no translation is
  involved.)

  If a BIOS does not know about `Large' or `LBA', then there are
  software solutions around.  Disk Managers like OnTrack or EZ-Drive
  replace the BIOS disk handling routines by their own.  Often this is
  accomplished by having the disk manager code live in the MBR and
  subsequent sectors (OnTrack calls this code DDO: Dynamic Drive
  Overlay), so that it is booted before any other operating system.
  That is why one may have problems when booting from a floppy when a
  Disk Manager has been installed.

  The effect is more or less the same as with a translating BIOS - but
  especially when running several different operating systems on the
  same disk, disk managers can cause a lot of trouble.

  Linux does support OnTrack Disk Manager since version 1.3.14, and EZ-
  Drive since version 1.3.29.  Some more details are given below.



  8.  Kernel disk translation for IDE disks

  If the Linux kernel detects the presence of some disk manager on an
  IDE disk, it will try to remap the disk in the same way this disk
  manager would have done, so that Linux sees the same disk partitioning
  as for example DOS with OnTrack or EZ-Drive.  However, NO remapping is
  done when a geometry was specified on the command line - so a
  `hd=cyls,heads,secs' command line option might well kill compatibility
  with a disk manager.

  The remapping is done by trying 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 255 heads
  (keeping H*C constant) until either C <= 1024 or H = 255.

  The details are as follows - subsection headers are the strings
  appearing in the corresponding boot messages.  Here and everywhere
  else in this text partition types are given in hexadecimal.


  8.1.  EZD

  EZ-Drive is detected by the fact that the first primary partition has
  type 55.  The geometry is remapped as described above, and the
  partition table from sector 0 is discarded - instead the partition
  table is read from sector 1.  Disk block numbers are not changed, but
  writes to sector 0 are redirected to sector 1.  This behaviour can be
  changed by recompiling the kernel with
   #define FAKE_FDISK_FOR_EZDRIVE  0 in ide.c.


  8.2.  DM6:DDO

  OnTrack DiskManager (on the first disk) is detected by the fact that
  the first primary partition has type 54.  The geometry is remapped as
  described above and the entire disk is shifted by 63 sectors (so that
  the old sector 63 becomes sector 0).  Afterwards a new MBR (with
  partition table) is read from the new sector 0.  Of course this shift
  is to make room for the DDO - that is why there is no shift on other
  disks.


  8.3.  DM6:AUX

  OnTrack DiskManager (on other disks) is detected by the fact that the
  first primary partition has type 51 or 53.  The geometry is remapped
  as described above.


  8.4.  DM6:MBR

  An older version of OnTrack DiskManager is detected not by partition
  type, but by signature.  (Test whether the offset found in bytes 2 and
  3 of the MBR is not more than 430, and the short found at this offset
  equals 0x55AA, and is followed by an odd byte.) Again the geometry is
  remapped as above.


  8.5.  PTBL

  Finally, there is a test that tries to deduce a translation from the
  start and end values of the primary partitions: If some partition has
  start and end sector number 1 and 63, respectively, and end heads 31,
  63, 127 or 254, then, since it is customary to end partitions on a
  cylinder boundary, and since moreover the IDE interface uses at most
  16 heads, it is conjectured that a BIOS translation is active, and the
  geometry is remapped to use 32, 64, 128 or 255 heads, respectively.
  However, no remapping is done when the current idea of the geometry
  already has 63 sectors per track and at least as many heads (since
  this probably means that a remapping was done already).


  9.  Consequences

  What does all of this mean?  For Linux users only one thing: that they
  must make sure that LILO and fdisk use the right geometry where
  `right' is defined for fdisk as the geometry used by the other
  operating systems on the same disk, and for LILO as the geometry that
  will enable successful interaction with the BIOS at boot time.
  (Usually these two coincide.)

  How does fdisk know about the geometry?  It asks the kernel, using the
  HDIO_GETGEO ioctl.  But the user can override the geometry
  interactively or on the command line.

  How does LILO know about the geometry?  It asks the kernel, using the
  HDIO_GETGEO ioctl.  But the user can override the geometry using the
  `disk=' option in /etc/lilo.conf (see lilo.conf(5)).  One may also
  give the linear option to LILO, and it will store LBA addresses
  instead of CHS addresses in its map file, and find out of the geometry
  to use at boot time (by using INT 13 Function 8 to ask for the drive
  geometry).

  How does the kernel know what to answer?  Well, first of all, the user
  may have specified an explicit geometry with a `hda=cyls,heads,secs'
  kernel command line option (see bootparam(7)).  And otherwise the
  kernel will guess, possibly using values obtained from the BIOS or the
  hardware.


  10.  Details


  10.1.  IDE details - the seven geometries

  The IDE driver has five sources of information about the geometry.
  The first (G_user) is the one specified by the user on the command
  line.  The second (G_bios) is the BIOS Fixed Disk Parameter Table (for
  first and second disk only) that is read on system startup, before the
  switch to 32-bit mode.  The third (G_phys) and fourth (G_log) are
  returned by the IDE controller as a response to the IDENTIFY command -
  they are the `physical' and `current logical' geometries.

  On the other hand, the driver needs two values for the geometry: on
  the one hand G_fdisk, returned by a HDIO_GETGEO ioctl, and on the
  other hand G_used, which is actually used for doing I/O.  Both G_fdisk
  and G_used are initialized to G_user if given, to G_bios when this
  information is present according to CMOS, and to G_phys otherwise.  If
  G_log looks reasonable then G_used is set to that.  Otherwise, if
  G_used is unreasonable and G_phys looks reasonable then G_used is set
  to G_phys.  Here `reasonable' means that the number of heads is in the
  range 1-16.

  To say this in other words: the command line overrides the BIOS, and
  will determine what fdisk sees, but if it specifies a translated
  geometry (with more than 16 heads), then for kernel I/O it will be
  overridden by output of the IDENTIFY command.

  Note that G_bios is rather unreliable: for systems booting from SCSI
  the first and second disk may well be SCSI disks, and the geometry
  that the BIOS reported for sda is used by the kernel for hda.
  Moreover, disks that are not mentioned in the BIOS Setup are not seen
  by the BIOS. This means that, e.g., in an IDE-only system where hdb is
  not given in the Setup, the geometries reported by the BIOS for the
  first and second disk will apply to hda and hdc.



  10.2.  SCSI details

  The situation for SCSI is slightly different, as the SCSI commands
  already use logical block numbers, so a `geometry' is entirely
  irrelevant for actual I/O.  However, the format of the partition table
  is still the same, so fdisk has to invent some geometry, and also uses
  HDIO_GETGEO here - indeed, fdisk does not distinguish between IDE and
  SCSI disks.  As one can see from the detailed description below, the
  various drivers each invent a somewhat different geometry.  Indeed,
  one big mess.

  If you are not using DOS or so, then avoid all extended translation
  settings, and just use 64 heads, 32 sectors per track (for a nice,
  convenient 1 MiB per cylinder), if possible, so that no problems arise
  when you move the disk from one controller to another.  Some SCSI disk
  drivers (aha152x, pas16, ppa, qlogicfas, qlogicisp) are so nervous
  about DOS compatibility that they will not allow a Linux-only system
  to use more than about 8 GiB.  This is a bug.

  What is the real geometry?  The easiest answer is that there is no
  such thing.  And if there were, you wouldn't want to know, and
  certainly NEVER, EVER tell fdisk or LILO or the kernel about it.  It
  is strictly a business between the SCSI controller and the disk.  Let
  me repeat that: only silly people tell fdisk/LILO/kernel about the
  true SCSI disk geometry.

  But if you are curious and insist, you might ask the disk itself.
  There is the important command READ CAPACITY that will give the total
  size of the disk, and there is the MODE SENSE command, that in the
  Rigid Disk Drive Geometry Page (page 04) gives the number of cylinders
  and heads (this is information that cannot be changed), and in the
  Format Page (page 03) gives the number of bytes per sector, and
  sectors per track.  This latter number is typically dependent upon the
  notch, and the number of sectors per track varies - the outer tracks
  have more sectors than the inner tracks.  The Linux program scsiinfo
  will give this information.  There are many details and complications,
  and it is clear that nobody (probably not even the operating system)
  wants to use this information.  Moreover, as long as we are only
  concerned about fdisk and LILO, one typically gets answers like
  C/H/S=4476/27/171 - values that cannot be used by fdisk because the
  partition table reserves only 10 resp. 8 resp. 6 bits for C/H/S.

  Then where does the kernel HDIO_GETGEO get its information from?
  Well, either from the SCSI controller, or by making an educated guess.
  Some drivers seem to think that we want to know `reality', but of
  course we only want to know what the DOS or OS/2 FDISK (or Adaptec
  AFDISK, etc) will use.

  Note that Linux fdisk needs the numbers H and S of heads and sectors
  per track to convert LBA sector numbers into c/h/s addresses, but the
  number C of cylinders does not play a role in this conversion.  Some
  drivers use (C,H,S) = (1023,255,63) to signal that the drive capacity
  is at least 1023*255*63 sectors.  This is unfortunate, since it does
  not reveal the actual size, and will limit the users of most fdisk
  versions to about 8 GiB of their disks - a real limitation in these
  days.

  In the description below, M denotes the total disk capacity, and C, H,
  S the number of cylinders, heads and sectors per track.  It suffices
  to give H, S if we regard C as defined by M / (H*S).

  By default, H=64, S=32.


     aha1740, dtc, g_NCR5380, t128, wd7000:
        H=64, S=32.
     aha152x, pas16, ppa, qlogicfas, qlogicisp:
        H=64, S=32 unless C > 1024, in which case H=255, S=63, C =
        min(1023, M/(H*S)).  (Thus C is truncated, and H*S*C is not an
        approximation to the disk capacity M.  This will confuse most
        versions of fdisk.)  The ppa.c code uses M+1 instead of M and
        says that due to a bug in sd.c M is off by 1.


     advansys:
        H=64, S=32 unless C > 1024 and moreover the `> 1 GB' option in
        the BIOS is enabled, in which case H=255, S=63.


     aha1542:
        Ask the controller which of two possible translation schemes is
        in use, and use either H=255, S=63 or H=64, S=32.  In the former
        case there is a boot message "aha1542.c: Using extended bios
        translation".


     aic7xxx:
        H=64, S=32 unless C > 1024, and moreover either the "extended"
        boot parameter was given, or the `extended' bit was set in the
        SEEPROM or BIOS, in which case H=255, S=63.  In Linux 2.0.36
        this extended translation would always be set in case no SEEPROM
        was found, but in Linux 2.2.6 if no SEEPROM is found extended
        translation is set only when the user asked for it using this
        boot parameter (while when a SEEPROM is found, the boot
        parameter is ignored).  This means that a setup that works under
        2.0.36 may fail to boot with 2.2.6 (and require the `linear'
        keyword for LILO, or the `aic7xxx=extended' kernel boot
        parameter).


     buslogic:
        H=64, S=32 unless C >= 1024, and moreover extended translation
        was enabled on the controller, in which case if M < 2^22 then
        H=128, S=32; otherwise H=255, S=63.  However, after making this
        choice for (C,H,S), the partition table is read, and if for one
        of the three possibilities (H,S) = (64,32), (128,32), (255,63)
        the value endH=H-1 is seen somewhere then that pair (H,S) is
        used, and a boot message is printed "Adopting Geometry from
        Partition Table".


     fdomain:
        Find the geometry information in the BIOS Drive Parameter Table,
        or read the partition table and use H=endH+1, S=endS for the
        first partition, provided it is nonempty, or use H=64, S=32 for
        M < 2^21 (1 GiB), H=128, S=63 for M < 63*2^17 (3.9 GiB) and
        H=255, S=63 otherwise.


     in2000:
        Use the first of (H,S) = (64,32), (64,63), (128,63), (255,63)
        that will make C <= 1024.  In the last case, truncate C at 1023.


     seagate:
        Read C,H,S from the disk.  (Horrors!)  If C or S is too large,
        then put S=17, H=2 and double H until C <= 1024.  This means
        that H will be set to 0 if M > 128*1024*17 (1.1 GiB).  This is a
        bug.



     ultrastor and u14_34f:
        One of three mappings ((H,S) = (16,63), (64,32), (64,63)) is
        used depending on the controller mapping mode.


  If the driver does not specify the geometry, we fall back on an edu­
  cated guess using the partition table, or using the total disk capac­
  ity.

  Look at the partition table.  Since by convention partitions end on a
  cylinder boundary, we can, given end = (endC,endH,endS) for any
  partition, just put H = endH+1 and S = endS.  (Recall that sectors are
  counted from 1.)  More precisely, the following is done.  If there is
  a nonempty partition, pick the partition with the largest beginC.  For
  that partition, look at end+1, computed both by adding start and
  length and by assuming that this partition ends on a cylinder
  boundary.  If both values agree, or if endC = 1023 and start+length is
  an integral multiple of (endH+1)*endS, then assume that this partition
  really was aligned on a cylinder boundary, and put H = endH+1 and S =
  endS.  If this fails, either because there are no partitions, or
  because they have strange sizes, then look only at the disk capacity
  M.  Algorithm: put H = M/(62*1024) (rounded up), S = M/(1024*H)
  (rounded up), C = M/(H*S) (rounded down).  This has the effect of
  producing a (C,H,S) with C at most 1024 and S at most 62.


  11.  The Linux IDE 8 GiB limit

  The Linux IDE driver gets the geometry and capacity of a disk (and
  lots of other stuff) by using an ATA IDENTIFY request.  Until recently
  the driver would not believe the returned value of lba_capacity if it
  was more than 10% larger than the capacity computed by C*H*S. However,
  by industry agreement large IDE disks (with more than 16514064
  sectors) return C=16383, H=16, S=63, for a total of 16514064 sectors
  (7.8 GB) independent of their actual size, but give their actual size
  in lba_capacity.

  Recent Linux kernels (2.0.34, 2.1.90) know about this and do the right
  thing. If you have an older Linux kernel and do not want to upgrade,
  and this kernel only sees 8 GiB of a much larger disk, then try
  changing the routine lba_capacity_is_ok in
  /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/ide.c into something like


       static int lba_capacity_is_ok (struct hd_driveid *id) {
               id->cyls = id->lba_capacity / (id->heads * id->sectors);
               return 1;
       }




  For a more cautious patch, see 2.1.90.


  11.1.  BIOS complications

  As just mentioned, large disks return the geometry C=16383, H=16, S=63
  independent of the actual size, while the actual size is returned in
  the value of LBAcapacity.  Some BIOSes do not recognize this, and
  translate this 16383/16/63 into something with fewer cylinders and
  more heads, for example 1024/255/63 or 1027/255/63. So, the kernel
  must not only recognize the single geometry 16383/16/63, but also all
  BIOS-mangled versions of it.  Since 2.2.2 this is done correctly (by
  taking the BIOS idea of H and S, and computing C = capacity/(H*S)).
  Usually this problem is solved by setting the disk to Normal in the
  BIOS setup (or, even better, to None, not mentioning it at all to the
  BIOS). If that is impossible because you have to boot from it or use
  it also with DOS/Windows, and upgrading to 2.2.2 or later is not an
  option, use kernel boot parameters.

  If a BIOS reports 16320/16/63, then this is usually done in order to
  get 1024/255/63 after translation.


  11.2.  Jumpers that select the number of heads

  Many IBM disks have jumpers that allow you to choose between a 15-head
  an a 16-head geometry. The default settings will give you a 16-head
  disk. Sometimes both geometries address the same number of sectors,
  sometimes the 15-head version is smaller.  There may be a good reason
  for this setup: Petri Kaukasoina writes: `A 10.1 Gig IBM Deskstar 16
  GP (model IBM-DTTA-351010) was jumpered for 16 heads as default but
  this old PC (with AMI BIOS) didn't boot and I had to jumper it for 15
  heads. hdparm -i tells RawCHS=16383/15/63 and LBAsects=19807200. I use
  20960/15/63 to get the full capacity.'  The geometry 16383/15/63 is
  not yet recognized by the kernel, so explicit boot parameters are
  required here.  For the jumper settings, see
  http://www.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/hddtech.htm.


  11.3.  Jumpers that clip total capacity

  Many IBM disks have jumpers that allow you to make the disk appear
  smaller than it is. A silly thing to do, and probably no Linux user
  ever wants to use this, but some BIOSes crash on big disks. The usual
  solution is to keep the disk entirely out of the BIOS setup. But this
  may be feasible only if the disk is not your boot disk.

  For example, a Deskstar 25 GB disk (DJNA-352500) can be jumpered to
  appear as a 2 GB disk. What a waste!

  A more recent limit is the 33.8 GB limit. Also Linux still needs a
  patch to be able to cope with IDE disks larger than this.  Disks
  larger than this limit, like a Deskstar 37.5 GB disk (DPTA-353750) can
  be jumpered to appear as a 33.8 GB disk.  See also the BIOS 33.8 GB
  limit.



  12.  The Linux 65535 cylinder limit

  The HDIO_GETGEO ioctl returns the number of cylinders in a short.
  This means that if you have more than 65535 cylinders, the number is
  truncated, and (for a typical SCSI setup with 1 MiB cylinders) a 80
  GiB disk may appear as a 16 GiB one.  Once one recognizes what the
  problem is, it is easily avoided.

  12.1.  IDE problems with 34+ GB disks

  Drives larger than 33.8 GB will not work with recent kernels.  The
  details are as follows.  Suppose you bought a new IBM-DPTA-373420 disk
  with a capacity of 66835440 sectors (34.2 GB). Recent kernels will
  tell you that the size is 769*16*63 = 775152 sectors (0.4 GB), which
  is a bit disappointing. And giving command line parameters
  hdc=4160,255,63 doesn't help at all - these are just ignored.  What
  happens? The routine idedisk_setup() retrieves the geometry reported
  by the disk (which is 16383/16/63) and overwrites what the user
  specified on the command line, so that the user data is used only for
  the BIOS geometry. The routine current_capacity() or
  idedisk_capacity() recomputes the cylinder number as
  66835440/(16*63)=66305, but since this is stored in a short, it
  becomes 769. Since lba_capacity_is_ok() destroyed id->cyls, every
  following call to it will return false, so that the disk capacity
  becomes 769*16*63.  A patch is available - probably it will soon get
  into some official kernel.


  13.  Extended and logical partitions

  ``Above,'' we saw the structure of the MBR (sector 0): boot loader
  code followed by 4 partition table entries of 16 bytes each, followed
  by an AA55 signature.  Partition table entries of type 5 or F or 85
  (hex) have a special significance: they describe extended partitions:
  blobs of space that are further partitioned into logical partitions.
  (So, an extended partition is only a box, it cannot be used itself,
  one uses the logical partitions inside.)  Only the location of the
  first sector of an extended partition is important. This first sector
  contains a partition table with four entries: one a logical partition,
  one an extended partition, and two unused. In this way one gets a
  chain of partition table sectors, scattered over the disk, where the
  first one describes three primary partitions and the extended
  partition, and each following partition table sector describes one
  logical partition and the location of the next partition table sector.

  It is important to understand this: When people do something stupid
  while partitioning a disk, they want to know: Is my data still there?
  And the answer is usually: Yes. But if logical partitions were created
  then the partition table sectors describing them are written at the
  beginning of these logical partitions, and data that was there before
  is lost.

  The program sfdisk will show the full chain. E.g.,


       # sfdisk -l -x /dev/hda

       Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 33483 cylinders
       Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

          Device Boot Start     End   #cyls   #blocks   Id  System
       /dev/hda1          0+    101     102-    51376+  83  Linux
       /dev/hda2        102    2133    2032   1024128   83  Linux
       /dev/hda3       2134   33482   31349  15799896    5  Extended
       /dev/hda4          0       -       0         0    0  Empty

       /dev/hda5       2134+   6197    4064-  2048224+  83  Linux
           -           6198   10261    4064   2048256    5  Extended
           -           2134    2133       0         0    0  Empty
           -           2134    2133       0         0    0  Empty

       /dev/hda6       6198+  10261    4064-  2048224+  83  Linux
           -          10262   16357    6096   3072384    5  Extended
           -           6198    6197       0         0    0  Empty
           -           6198    6197       0         0    0  Empty
       ...
       /dev/hda10     30581+  33482    2902-  1462576+  83  Linux
           -          30581   30580       0         0    0  Empty
           -          30581   30580       0         0    0  Empty
           -          30581   30580       0         0    0  Empty

       #




  It is possible to construct bad partition tables.  Many kernels get
  into a loop if some extended partition points back to itself or to an
  earlier partition in the chain.  It is possible to have two extended
  partitions in one of these partition table sectors so that the
  partition table chain forks.  (This can happen for example with an
  fdisk that does not recognize each of 5, F, 85 as an extended
  partition, and creates a 5 next to an F.)  No standard fdisk type
  program can handle such situations, and some handwork is required to
  repair them.  The Linux kernel will accept a fork at the outermost
  level.  That is, you can have two chains of logical partitions.
  Sometimes this is useful - for example, one can use type 5 and be seen
  by DOS, and the other type 85, invisible for DOS, so that DOS FDISK
  will not crash because of logical partitions past cylinder 1024.



  14.  Problem solving

  Many people think they have problems, while in fact nothing is wrong.
  Or, they think that the problems they have are due to disk geometry,
  while in fact disk geometry has nothing to do with the matter.  All of
  the above may have sounded complicated, but disk geometry handling is
  extremely easy: do nothing at all, and all is fine; or perhaps give
  LILO the keyword `linear' if it doesn't get past `LI' when booting.
  Watch the kernel boot messages, and remember: the more you fiddle with
  geometries (specifying heads and cylinders to LILO and fdisk and on
  the kernel command line) the less likely it is that things will work.
  Roughly speaking, all is fine by default.

  And remember: nowhere in Linux is disk geometry used, so no problem
  you have while running Linux can be caused by disk geometry.  Indeed,
  disk geometry is used only by LILO and by fdisk.  So, if LILO fails to
  boot the kernel, that may be a geometry problem.  If different
  operating systems do not understand the partition table, that may be a
  geometry problem. Nothing else. In particular, if mount doesnt seem to
  work, never worry about disk geometry - the problem is elsewhere.


  14.1.  Problem: Linux invents the wrong geometry for my disk.

  It is quite possible that a disk gets the wrong geometry.  The Linux
  kernel asks the BIOS about hd0 and hd1 (the BIOS drives numbered 80H
  and 81H) and assumes that this data is for hda and hdb.  But on a
  system that boots from SCSI, the first two disks may well be SCSI
  disks, and thus it may happen that the fifth disk, which is the first
  IDE disk hda, gets assigned a geometry belonging to sda.  Such things
  are easily solved by giving boot parameters `hda=C,H,S' for the
  appropriate numbers C, H and S, either at boot time or in
  /etc/lilo.conf.



  14.2.  Nonproblem: Identical disks have different geometry?

  `I have two identical 10 GB IBM disks. However, fdisk gives different
  sizes for them. Look:












  # fdisk /dev/hdb
  Disk /dev/hdb: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 1232 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

     Device Boot  Start      End   Blocks   Id  System
  /dev/hdb1           1     1232  9896008+  83  Linux native
  # fdisk /dev/hdd
  Disk /dev/hdd: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 19650 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes

     Device Boot  Start      End   Blocks   Id  System
  /dev/hdd1           1    19650  9903568+  83  Linux native




  How come?'

  What is happening here? Well, first of all these drives really are
  10gig: hdb has size 255*63*1232*512 = 10133544960, and hdd has size
  16*63*19650*512 = 10141286400, so, nothing is wrong and the kernel
  sees both as 10.1 GB.  Why the difference in size? That is because the
  kernel gets data for the first two IDE disks from the BIOS, and the
  BIOS has remapped hdb to have 255 heads (and 16*19650/255=1232
  cylinders).  The rounding down here costs almost 8 MB.

  If you would like to remap hdd in the same way, give the kernel boot
  parameters `hdd=1232,255,63'.


  14.3.  Nonproblem: fdisk sees much more room than df?

  fdisk will tell you how many blocks there are on the disk.  If you
  make a filesystem on the disk, say with mke2fs, then this filesystem
  needs some space for bookkeeping - typically something like 4% of the
  filesystem size, more if you ask for a lot of inodes during mke2fs.
  For example:


       # sfdisk -s /dev/hda9
       4095976
       # mke2fs -i 1024 /dev/hda9
       mke2fs 1.12, 9-Jul-98 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
       ...
       204798 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
       ...
       # mount /dev/hda9 /somewhere
       # df /somewhere
       Filesystem         1024-blocks  Used Available Capacity Mounted on
       /dev/hda9            3574475      13  3369664      0%   /mnt
       # df -i /somewhere
       Filesystem           Inodes   IUsed   IFree  %IUsed Mounted on
       /dev/hda9            4096000      11 4095989     0%  /mnt
       #




  We have a partition with 4095976 blocks, make an ext2 filesystem on
  it, mount it somewhere and find that it only has 3574475 blocks -
  521501 blocks (12%) was lost to inodes and other bookkeeping.  Note
  that the difference between the total 3574475 and the 3369664 avail­
  able to the user are the 13 blocks in use plus the 204798 blocks
  reserved for root. This latter number can be changed by tune2fs.  This
  `-i 1024' is only reasonable for news spools and the like, with lots
  and lots of small files. The default would be:
       # mke2fs /dev/hda9
       # mount /dev/hda9 /somewhere
       # df /somewhere
       Filesystem         1024-blocks  Used Available Capacity Mounted on
       /dev/hda9            3958475      13  3753664      0%   /mnt
       # df -i /somewhere
       Filesystem           Inodes   IUsed   IFree  %IUsed Mounted on
       /dev/hda9            1024000      11 1023989     0%  /mnt
       #




  Now only 137501 blocks (3.3%) are used for inodes, so that we have 384
  MB more than before. (Apparently, each inode takes 128 bytes.)  On the
  other hand, this filesystem can have at most 1024000 files (more than
  enough), against 4096000 (too much) earlier.

















































