Partitioning And Formatting A Large Disk (2086.09GB)

["Michael S. Peek" <peek@tiem.utk.edu>]

Hello fellow Debian aficionados,

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to partition and format 
a large disk.

I have a 3ware card and an array defined thusly:
> # tw_cli /c4/u0 show
>  
> Unit     UnitType  Status         %Cmpl  Port  Stripe  Size(GB)  Blocks
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> u0       RAID-5    OK             -      -     64K     2086.09   
> 4374845440   
When I went to try to partition the disk with fdisk, it said:
> # fdisk /dev/sdb
> Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or 
> OSF disklabel
> Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
> until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
> content won't be recoverable.
>  
> You must set cylinders.
> You can do this from the extra functions menu.
> Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by 
> w(rite)
Hmm.... Cylinders.

I've never had to calculate geometry before, so I gave it a try.

First thing I did was (n00b alert) count the bytes on /dev/sdb.  (Does 
tw_cli consider 1GB = 1000MB or 1024MB?  What about fdisk?  If I count 
it myself then I won't have to care.)  Turns out /dev/sdb is 
2239920865280 bytes.  So, if I use the default: heads=255, 
sectors/track=63, sector size=512, then the number of cylinders should 
be 272321 -- well within the 1-1048576 range.  (That comes out to be a 
total of 2239916474880 bytes.)
> Command (m for help): x
>  
> Expert command (m for help): ?
> Command action
>    b   move beginning of data in a partition
>    c   change number of cylinders
>    d   print the raw data in the partition table
>    e   list extended partitions
>    f   fix partition order
>    g   create an IRIX (SGI) partition table
>    h   change number of heads
>    m   print this menu
>    p   print the partition table
>    q   quit without saving changes
>    r   return to main menu
>    s   change number of sectors/track
>    v   verify the partition table
>    w   write table to disk and exit
>  
> Expert command (m for help): s
> Number of sectors (1-63, default 63):  
> Using default value 63
> Warning: setting sector offset for DOS compatiblity
>  
> Expert command (m for help): h
> Number of heads (1-256, default 255):  
> Using default value 255
>  
> Expert command (m for help): c
> Number of cylinders (1-1048576): 272321
>  
> The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 272321.
> There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>    (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
>  
> Expert command (m for help): r
>  
> Command (m for help): n
> Command action
>    e   extended
>    p   primary partition (1-4)
> p
> Partition number (1-4): 1
> First cylinder (1-4972, default 1): 
Uh... What?
> Using default value 1
> Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-4972, default 4972):  
> Using default value 4972
I thought I just set the number of cylinders to 272321.  Where is 4972 
coming from?

Is there anyone more experienced than I that can clue me in?

Michael