# Formatting HD > 137GB

## badtz42

I have an old computer that I have installed Gentoo on. I want to use this computer as a file server so I got a 200GB hard drive to put into it.

I have my OS installed on the first smaller drive. I want to use this 200GB HD purely as storage. Now I know all about LBA48 and the limitations involved. My old mobo & BIOS do not support LBA48. But I have read that when not booting to the drive, it doesn't matter if you have BIOS support. Is this correct?

If it isn't a problem, how do you format the drive? fdisk will not let me format it larger than 137GB.

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## hardcore

I'm not sure about making one partition larger than 137.  I think you should be able to make two 100GB partitions though.

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## truekaiser

yea you will be able to make two partitions that take up all the drive's space.

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## hardcore

In theory, you should be able to make that whole disk one partition.  What filesystem were you planning on using?

BTW, you might want to try out cfdisk, even the manual for fdisk recommends it.

 *Quote:*   

> There  are  several  *fdisk  programs around.  Each has its problems and strengths.
> 
>        Try them in the order cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk.  (Indeed, cfdisk is a  beautiful  pro-
> 
>        gram  that has strict requirements on the partition tables it accepts, and produces
> ...

 

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## badtz42

I want to use reiserfs. It doesn't matter if I have 2 100GB or 1 200GB partition really.

I'll check out cfdisk when I get a chance this evening.

thanks.

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## badtz42

Didn't work.

I just reread my original post, and I tihink I didn't explain it well.

Fdisk does not allow me to make a partition larger than 137.4GB because that is all it seems to see.  The same with cfdisk and sfdisk.

I'll rephrase my original question:

Knowing my motherboard and BIOS do not support LBA48, on a hard drive used just for storage, can I somehow gain access to the entire 200GB?

this is what fdisk /dev/hda then p gives me:

Disk /dev/hdb: 137.4 GB, 137438953472 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 16709 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

My kernel is 2.6.8-gentoo-r3 and I have IDE, disk, auto geometry, cdrom, pci ide, generic pci bust-master dma,  and ali m15x3 (my chipset) compiled in.Last edited by badtz42 on Tue Oct 05, 2004 11:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## pjp

Moved from Other Things Gentoo.

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## kleb

Check this out:

http://www.48bitlba.com/tools.htm

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## kleb

Ideally you're looking for a overlay driver that can load before Lilo/grub does to replace the bios driver.

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## zurd

My mobo has a 32Gigs limit for HD (it's an old one) and I have this 120 gigs Maxtor HD.

Here I am using it in one partition of 120 gigs in Linux in ReiserFS  :Smile: 

My mobo still cannot see it and if I go in BIOS and probe for HD it will hang.  Doesn't matter though as long as my OS can see it.

I had to use the maxblast3.exe software from Maxtor to install something call DDO on the HD so that I can use the 120 gigs out of it.  Seems like you need to do the same thing.

Another option would be to buy an HD PCI card controller.

Good luck

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## badtz42

I tried the Seagate utility.  It only allows you for format Fat32 or ntfs. I tried to format it fat32 and it said it was formating it 200GB. But I don't think it did because fdisk said the partition was 8GB.

Here is what my dmesg says:

hdb: max request size: 128KiB

hdb: cannot use LBA48 - full capacity 390721968 sectors (200049 MB)

hdb: 268435456 sectors (137438 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=16709/255/63, UDMA(33)

 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0: p1

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## zurd

That is just a guess but since you don't seem to know what to do.

try to do a hdx=remap in your grub.conf on the kernel line.

I had to do this to boot in 2.6, else it wouldn't work.  I think that's because of the DDO I installed on the 120 gigs HD.  Because before it was working just fine.

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