fdisk is limited to 8GB

[Cindy <cindy@willowglen.com.my>]

Hi,

I have a 10GB IDE harddisk on I386, and installation CD(2.4)/floppy(2.5) 
only recognized the first 16450560 sectors, which equals to 1024*63*255.

I had a look at the source code of fdisk, it is getting the disklabel from
bios, so this number makes sense.  However, while booting, the hardware
detects the following about the hard disk:

wd0: 9787MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 20044080 sec total

16383*16*63 == 16514064 != 20044080
19885*16*63 == 20044080

And 19885 is the cylinders number in the bios! If the hardware detecting
cannot read cylinder correctly, it is weird that it can get total sectors
correctly.

Although I can make the disklabel bigger AFTER I installed by changing the
numbers in the label file and relabel the hard disk, it is not so
convenient. Since hard disks are getting bigger, (people are talking about
10GB, 20GB all the time), I think it would be better if the fdisk can be
fixed, at installation time.

It seems this is not fixed in the current source code in cvs. Is there
anyone who is planning to fix it? I can try, but the kernel/bios related
part is too complicated for me, unless someone gives me some hints on how.

Thanks,

Cindy Ding
Senior System Engineer
Willowglen MSC Sdn Bhd
No 1-2, Jalan 2/149B
Taman Sri Endah
Bandar Baru Sri Petaling
57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: (603) 9587104
Fax: (603) 9583904
Email: cindy@willowglen.com.my