SUMMARY: 20 GB IDE drive in Ultra 10, part 2
2007-12-24 19:43:00
I said:
> Seems I'm not the only one having trouble with large IDE drives, but I
> haven't seen any definitive answer yet. Here is my problem: I
> received a 20 GB IDE drive from Western Digital WDC WD200BB-00AUA1.
> After setting it up in an Ultra 10 machine (as the only drive on the
> second IDE channel), I fired format, and it tells me that the drive
> has:
> <WDC WD200BB-00AUA1 cyl 16381 alt 2 hd 16 sec 63>, with 16512048
> blocks.
> According to the manufacturer's doc, the drive actually has 39102336
> blocks.
> So I set about creating a format.dat entry for the drive: disk_type =
> "WDC WD200BB-00AUA1" \
> : ctlr = ata : ncyl = 14545 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 14547 \
> : nhead = 14 : nsect = 192 : rpm = 7200
> partition = "WD200BB" \
> : disk = "WDC WD200BB-00AUA1" : ctlr = ata \
> : 2 = 0, 39096960 \
> : 6 = 0, 39096960
> Then, in format I selected the new disk type, partitioned, labeled,
> and run a couple passes of read analysis with no problem.
> *BUT*, then, when trying to newfs a partition there, I got I/O errors,
> and when starting format again, it complained that the label was bad
> because it pretended to have more blocks than the disk was
> reporting... The complaint message also appears during a reboot:
> unix: WARNING: /pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ide at 3/dad at 2,0 (dad1):
> unix: corrupt label - bad geometry
> unix:
> unix: Label says 39099648 blocks, Drive says 16514064 blocks
> I then wondered if it could be caused by an outdated PROM, and updated
> that to the latest, but to no avail...
> If I give in, and use only 16512048 blocks, I can then partition the
> drive and create filesystems just fine. But that's not
> satisfactory...
> I also looked for a patch to format, but couldn't find one...
And I forgot to mention that all this is on Solaris 2.6.
I got some more answers after my first summary, and actually got things
working with 2.6 :)
Here is the mostly official and risk-free answer:
The answer is that 2.6 will only see at most 8 GB on any IDE disk.
To effectively use bigger IDE disks, one needs Solaris 7 (on SPARC), and/or
Solaris 8 (SPARC and x86).
I hear that a FAQ update is in the works, that should clarify all this.
Keep an eye on ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/faq ...
However, there also seems to be an unofficial answer for the bold and daring:
patch your Solaris 2.6 to the latest recommended stuff, then use IDE patches
from ftp://ftp.tadpolecycle.com/pub/bigdisks/
I did just that, and now I can use the whole disk. I do not recommend that
you do the same, and if things break, you get to keep all the pieces !
But, it works for me (so far... ;-)
Steps:
- *BACKUP*
- install the patches
- reboot
- zero the first few blocks of the big disk to get rid of the old label
- use format and newfs
Cheers,
Christian
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