Comment 9 for bug 6807

Message-ID: <20040524214026.GA17860@treasure>
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 23:40:26 +0200
From: Bastian Kleineidam <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: Partition table interpretation error on kernel 2.6

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.

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
- "there are many reasons", but does not tell what they are
- "most likely" is a wild guess and not helpful
- 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
- what should the user input after seeing a prompt "Ignore/Cancel" ?
  better would be "[i]gnore/[C]ancel:"

Greetings, Bastian

--
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