RE: LBA and CHS parameters of my FBSD partition differ!

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To: "Marcello Maggioni" <hayarms@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 02:11:25 -0700

> Is this problem present silently with every OS (the problem exists but
> is not reported)

yes. But, why is it a problem? It really isn't, you know.

The only BIOS thing concerning hard disks that any modern operating
system
uses is the BIOS routines to load the kernel. Whether the kernel is a
FreeBSD
kernel like FreeBSD, or a Windows kernel like NTKERNEL, once the kernel
and
disk drivers have been fetched from the hard disk, via BIOS code, they
are
loaded, and the operating system can now talk to the hard disk directly.

Granted, if you use some real-mode program to partition the hard disk,
like
the Windows 98 fdisk program running under DOS, why then you are going to
be
concerned with things like this. But, WinXP, Win2K, OS/2, all UNIXES,
they all require themselves to be booted and running.

FreeBSD knows all about how to read partition tables that Windows OSes
have
left on the hard drive, so in a dual-boot situation it should keep clear
of the
Windows partition. Windows knows all about how to read partition tables
that
itself writes, and God knows if it knows anything beyond that, so in
general
on dual-boot systems, if you follow the convention of loading Windows
first
followed by loading FreeBSD, then all the bits end up in the right place.

Partition Magic is, in my opinion, nothing more than a crutch for lazy
people
who are too lazy to backup their Windows systems then reformat their hard
drives
with Windows and create with Windows a smaller partition, leaving free
space
for FreeBSD. But of course, saying that is going to get people coming
out of
the woodwork to flame me.

Ted

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marcello Maggioni [mailto:hayarms@gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 1:58 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: LBA and CHS parameters of my FBSD partition differ!
>
>
> Very bad...
>
> My motherboard (Abit KV7) has 8 different bios release and none of
> these seems to solve this issue. My 30GB disk on the other IDE
> channel seems to work fine with FreeBSD.
> Is this problem present silently with every OS (the problem exists but
> is not reported) or only with FBSD?
>
> Thanks
>
> Marcello
>
> 2005/5/15, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>:
> >
> > Well, your skirting the thin edge since you obviously have a
> dual-boot
> > system - but if a fsck of the FreeBSD partition, and a
> chkdsk /f of the
> > XP partition turn up nothing, your probably fine.
> >
> > What is going on is your motherboard BIOS is old, and
> doesen't understand
> > disk drives that report more than
> >
> > cylinders 16383
> > heads 16
> > sectors/track 63
> >
> > and furthermore doesen't understand LBA mode all that well either.
> > Basically,
> > the OS (either Windows or FreeBSD) does a BIOS call at boot
> to figure out
> > the
> > size of the disk, and what they are both getting back
> differs from what
> > the
> > drive reports when the disk driver queries it directly.
> >
> > If your motherboard is reasonably supported the manufacturer
> may have a
> > BIOS update that might fix this. Otherwise, if everything
> is working,
> > leave well enough alone.
> >
> > The failure that can result if your not lucky is that one OS
> scribbles on
> > the others space on the disk.
> >
> > For people that only run a single OS on the computer, these error
> > messages
> > can be ignored - unless, that is, after installation, the FreeBSD
> > partition
> > fails to boot.
> >
> > Ted
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> > > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Marcello
> > > Maggioni
> > > Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 4:09 PM
> > > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> > > Subject: LBA and CHS parameters of my FBSD partition differ!
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I have FreeBSD 5.4 installed after a buildworld from 5.3 .
> > >
> > > The problem is that during the setup of the system a
> warning message
> > > appeared and notified me something about "Wrong disk geometry" or
> > > something like that. I ignored the message and installed the system
> > > which booted and worked fine .
> > >
> > > Today, from my WinXP disk I loaded Partition Magic 8 and
> this warned
> > > me that my FBSD partition has different LBA and CHS parameters and
> > > that this is wrong, because these two should be identical
> and asked me
> > > if I would like to correct this. I answered no, bue what
> should I do?
> > > Why there is this incongruency in these 2 parameters?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > Marcello
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
> > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to
> > > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
> > >
> >
> >
>

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