install/partition weirdness; 60Gig ATA100 HD
Hi, all...
I'm trying to install a new system from a Debian 2.1 CD I
have (VA Linux Debian 2.1 Install from the store shelf that
has the 2.2.12 kernel on it) and I'm just running into some
really weird stuff.
Well, after partitioning (about 59Gig for / and 2 x 128MB
for swap partitions) and then waited 10 hours for the
block tests to complete, it all looked good.
Then the "moment of truth"... the reboot. The system came
up with all kinds of disk issues for fsck. Lots of duplicate
block warnings (can't remember exact words, but something
like duplicate blocks and/or inodes, maybe?)
Well, I decided to try installing again from scratch, but
now, I find that cfdisk sees my disk a little less than half
of the size it's supposed to be.
I've spent the last several hours trying different settings
in my BIOS for cyl/hd/sec values and even using the values
found by the autodetect (which I used the first time, anyway).
When the kernel on the installation CD boots, it lists the
disk geometry correctly for the LBA values of the disk, but
those values are not believed to be accurate for cfdisk. It
lists fewer cylinders and when I change it, I'm told that
the value is too high for my disk.
I've been trying to create a 6 Gig partition for / and
2 x 128 MB partitions for swap, and leave the remaining
55 Gig open for future expansion (to keep things running
faster for now, since the huge disk takes so long to do
anything on).
Of course, I didn't get any of the size errors or hassles
listed above when I first attempted to install this yesterday,
up until that fateful boot that made my disk look smaller
to cfdisk.
Here's a brief description of what I've got going:
- new abit motherboard, that supports dual Pentium III's
(only got 1 for now), and has 4 IDE interfaces (2 additional
for ATA-100 support)
- 60 Gig ATA-100 HD, connected with the required ATA/66
cable.
I tried my first install with the disk connected to
/dev/hde and my cdrom connected to /dev/hda, but the
harddrive was not detected at all by the linux install,
so I moved the hd to /dev/hda and the cdrom to /dev/hdc.
i figured it would work, but I would just miss out on
the ATA-100 features/speeds. (I'm keeping my HD and
cdrom as master drives on separate interfaces)
Did I do the right thing here? or should I try the
/dev/hde interface again, but use some kind of boot
parameter for the linux install to recognize that
ide interface?
Sorry for being so long, but I wanted to include all the
info I could up front.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I already have a
working Debian system; this one is supposed to be my game
and file server.
Thanks, in advance!
-Chris
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