The EZ-Drive software does not run when Linux runs
so `work with' does not really apply.
Roughly speaking, what EZ-Drive does is using the first 17 sectors
of the disk for its own stuff, have a private partition table that is
the ordinary one but with the partition ID replaced by 55, and a copy
of the original table in sector 1 (counting from 0).
Linux supports this since 1.3.29, that is, there is a flag
"remap_0_to_1" in the IDE driver that will redirect access
of sector 0 to sector 1. So, yes, roughly speaking you can
use an IDE disk that has EZ-Drive on it with Linux.
[Why `roughly speaking'? Depending on the precise kernel version
you are using it may be necessary to give command line parameters
to make Linux see the entire disk (and not believe the BIOS if that
claims the disk to be 8.4 GB). But the routine that does autotranslation
stuff does not do anything when an explicit geometry was specified,
and that means that the remap_0_to_1 is not done.
Without user parameters the kernel invents a translation,
but not always the same as was invented by EZ-Drive.
There are other, more obscure, flaws in this area.
Mail aeb@cwi.nl if you have EZ-Drive problems - probably I have patches.
And mail aeb@cwi.nl if you use EZ-Drive and don't have problems - I am
collecting information about versions of EZ-Drive and the translations
they invent; I am especially interested in translations that do not
have 63 sectors/track or do not have 255 heads. I am also interested
in the behaviour of EZ-Drive on the first disk when that is a disk that
does not require translation.]
Andries
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