Comment 10 for bug 6807

Message-ID: <20040525054041.GA8060@pegasos>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 07:40:41 +0200
From: Sven Luther <email address hidden>
To: Bastian Kleineidam <email address hidden>, <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: Bug#250528: Partition table interpretation error on kernel 2.6

On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 11:40:26PM +0200, Bastian Kleineidam wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I get the above error too:
> $ parted /dev/hda check 1
> Error: The partition table on /dev/hda is inconsistent. There are many reasons why this might
> be the case. However, the most likely reason is that Linux detected the BIOS geometry for
> /dev/hda incorrectly. GNU Parted suspects the real geometry should be 7476/255/63 (not
> 119150/16/63). You should check with your BIOS first, as this may not be correct. You can
> inform Linux by adding the parameter hda=7476,255,63 to the command line. See the LILO or
> GRUB documentation for more information. If you think Parted's suggested geometry is correct,
> you may select Ignore to continue (and fix Linux later). Otherwise, select Cancel (and fix
> Linux and/or the BIOS now).
> Ignore/Cancel? c
> Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.

This is probably because the behavior with regard geometry changed
between 2.4 and 2.6.

> Apart from that, this error message is pretty shitty, it does not say
> anything:
> - does not tell what units the numbers 7476/255/63 are

Come on, anyone handling partition table would know that, it is in
512byte sectors naturally.

> - "there are many reasons", but does not tell what they are

Because it is an open ended list.

> - "most likely" is a wild guess and not helpful

Sure.

> - I can not see that "Linux detected the BIOS incorrectly", instead of
> that I see two more weird number pairs:
> $ cat /proc/ide/hda/geometry
> physical 16383/16/63
> logical 65535/16/63

So, what is the real geometry of your disk ? And what did it show with
2.4 kernels ?

> - what should the user input after seeing a prompt "Ignore/Cancel" ?
> better would be "[i]gnore/[C]ancel:"

The capital letter is the one to use, is that not enough ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther