Incompatibility between fdisk and partition magic in 7K60 hard disk

[sea]

Hello everyone,

I just have a new hard disk (Travelstar 7K60, 60GB) mobile disk for my
thinkpad T30. Unfortunately, after partitioned by fdisk in redhat
9.0, the partition table can not be read in partition magic (8.0). I
haven't such problem with another hard disk (Travelstar 40GNX, 40GB).
If I partitioned in windows, intallation of linux would show some
error message about inconsistance in BIOS geometeries and disk.
Strangely, althogh this error could be ignored in linux, Partition
Magic reported errors about unequal values in CHS and LBA in Windows.
Linux somehow did changes to the table, which is not recognized by
Partition Magic. Is that due to the large capacity of my new disk? Or
linux and partition magic use different type of partition table in the
MBR?

I am looking forward to someone's help and advice. Many thank in
advance.

Best regards,
Hai

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello everyone,

I just have a new hard disk (Travelstar 7K60, 60GB) mobile disk for my
thinkpad T30. Unfortunately, after partitioned by fdisk in redhat
9.0, the partition table can not be read in partition magic (8.0). I
haven't such problem with another hard disk (Travelstar 40GNX, 40GB).
If I partitioned in windows, intallation of linux would show some
error message about inconsistance in BIOS geometeries and disk.
Strangely, althogh this error could be ignored in linux, Partition
Magic reported errors about unequal values in CHS and LBA in Windows.
Linux somehow did changes to the table, which is not recognized by
Partition Magic. Is that due to the large capacity of my new disk? Or
linux and partition magic use different type of partition table in the
MBR?

Partition Magic also has the problem that is cannot deal with newer
ext2 filesystem. And after it killed my second disk (i.e. the
partitions on it), I have stopped using it entirely. Hovever I have
no problems with a normal 80GB disk partitioned with linux
fdisk, mkefsck'ed with linux mkdosfs on the first few partitions
and XP on these first partitions, so the problem may not be critical.

What does Windows scandisk say about the partitions visible
to Windows? Do you need to use PM for anything?

You might also want to set the disk geometry to "LBA" in the
BIOS.

Arno

 

[Michael Cecil]

Partition Magic also has the problem that is cannot deal with newer
ext2 filesystem.

There's now a new ext2fs and an old ext2fs? Not including ext3fs?

 

[Arno Wagner]

There's now a new ext2fs and an old ext2fs? Not including ext3fs?

Not really. There is a newer revision of ext2 that supports larger
partitions. PM and GNU parted are the only application/OS that have
problems with it, it seems.

And no, it is not ext3. I think the change was around the
introduction of the 2.4.x stable ernels.

Arno

 

[Michael Cecil]

Not really. There is a newer revision of ext2 that supports larger
partitions. PM and GNU parted are the only application/OS that have
problems with it, it seems.

And no, it is not ext3. I think the change was around the
introduction of the 2.4.x stable ernels.

Interesting. I'll have to be on the look out for that I guess.

 

[sea]

Many thanks, winXP disk management can see all the partitions, which
were created by fdisk in linux. However, after the installation of
winXP and win98, fdisk reported that some partition 1-4 do not end on
cylinder boundary. Partitions were formated in windows systems. Do
you know to to resize the partitions in linux?

BTW, I could not find LBA in bios, which might be hidden in thinkpad
T30 bios.

Hai

 

[Arno Wagner]

Many thanks, winXP disk management can see all the partitions, which
were created by fdisk in linux.

It seems Linux is by now better that XP in almost everything system
related. I would not know how to install/administrate/backup XP
without linux... ;-)

However, after the installation of
winXP and win98, fdisk reported that some partition 1-4 do not end on
cylinder boundary. Partitions were formated in windows systems. Do
you know to to resize the partitions in linux?

This is a warning. It can be ignored with any modern OS. Historically
there where OSes that needed their partitions to begin/end exactly
on cylinder boundaries.

BTW, I could not find LBA in bios, which might be hidden in thinkpad
T30 bios.

That is likely the source of the warnings. With LBA there are no
cylinder boundaries. With any other setting there are, but
they are faked/imaginary.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It seems Linux is by now better that XP in almost everything system
related. I would not know how to install/administrate/backup XP
without linux... ;-)


This is a warning. It can be ignored with any modern OS. Historically
there where OSes that needed their partitions to begin/end exactly
on cylinder boundaries.

Well, how else would you know the CHS geometry if it didn't?

That is likely the source of the warnings.
ROTFLOL!

With LBA there are no cylinder boundaries.

Ofcourse there are. LBA assist is just another CHS translation.

With any other setting there are, but they are faked/imaginary.

Absolutely clueless.