I have one Linux boot diskette, with atleast IDE support.
I put a very new clean HD in the primary IDE interface.
Boot Linux from diskette, now it identifies the harddisk as:
hda: QUANTUM FIREBALL ST3.2A, 3079MB w/81kB Cache, LBA, CHS=782/128/63
Ok, switch off, and move the HD to the secondary interface.
Boot Linux from diskette, now it identifies the harddisk as:
hdc: QUANTUM FIREBALL ST3.2A, 3079MB w/81kB Cache, LBA, CHS=6256/16/63
See the difference?
Ok, this is extreemly anoying when I am cloning an server. If I insert a
HD in the secondary interface and partitionate and format it, it will
get the wrong CHS=6256/16/63 structure. When I move this HD to a primary
(hda) interface then it will, for some unknown reason, detect it as
CHS=782/128/63 and then fdisk will barf and so on. Not very great.
This took me some furious time to relize that it was a difference in
detection between the primary and secondary interface.
I do explicitly set LBA in the BIOS/CMOS configuration, But it does'nt
make any difference. I can even set CHS=782/128/63, but still it will be
detected as CHS=6256/16/63. I am totally unable to initialize a HD on the
secondary interface to the correct (or wrong in my opinion, but that is a
lilo thing) CHS=782/128/63.
The BIOS does detect the harddisk correctly, so I guess this is something
wierd in the linux kernel.
This is Linux 2.0.33, on a new ASUS TX97-E motherboard.
The HD's physical orientation is CHS=6256/16/63.
I have had this problem with all kinds of pentium motherboards and linux
kernels.
/Ryde