[Soekris] HDD maximum size - BIOS issue?

Igor Sobrado igor at string1.ciencias.uniovi.es
Fri Jan 26 21:59:33 UTC 2007


Hello.

I have just installed a 80 GB Hitachi Travelstar enhanced availability
drive (a E7K100 drive, also known as HTE721080G9AT00).  This is the
output of comBIOS when booting:

comBIOS ver. 1.28  20050529  Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Soekris Engineering.

net4801

0256 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Geode 266 Mhz 

Pri Mas  HTE721080G9AT00                 LBA Xlt 1024-255-63  12614 Mbyte
Pri Sla  SanDisk SDCFB-1024              LBA Xlt 993-32-63  1001 Mbyte

Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00:0 1078 0001 06000000 0107 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:06:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0000000 10
0:07:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0001000 10
0:08:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E301 A0002000 10
0:10:0 104C AC23 06040002 0107 0210 08 3F 01 00000000 00000000 
0:18:2 100B 0502 01018001 0005 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:19:0 0E11 A0F8 0C031008 0117 0280 08 38 00 A0003000 00000000 11
1:00:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000D001 A4000000 05
1:01:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000D101 A4001000 11

 5 Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.

(it looks like a 10 GB HDD right now).  After booting all seems working:

# Inside MBR partition 3: type A6 start 63 size 156296322
# /dev/rwd0c:
type: ESDI
disk: ESDI/IDE disk
label: HTE721080G9AT00 
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 16383
total sectors: 156301488
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0 

16 partitions:
#             size        offset  fstype [fsize bsize  cpg]
  a:        130977            63  4.2BSD   2048 16384  130 # Cyl     0*-   129 
  b:       1048320        131040    swap                   # Cyl   130 -  1169 
  c:     156301488             0  unused      0     0      # Cyl     0 -155060 
  d:        131040       1179360  4.2BSD   2048 16384  130 # Cyl  1170 -  1299 
  e:         65520       1310400  4.2BSD   2048 16384   66 # Cyl  1300 -  1364 
  f:       2097648       1375920  4.2BSD   2048 16384  328 # Cyl  1365 -  3445 
  g:         33264       3473568  4.2BSD   2048 16384   34 # Cyl  3446 -  3478 
  h:        131040       3506832  4.2BSD   2048 16384  130 # Cyl  3479 -  3608 
  i:         98784       3637872  4.2BSD   2048 16384   98 # Cyl  3609 -  3706 
  j:         49392       3736656  4.2BSD   2048 16384   50 # Cyl  3707 -  3755 
  k:         65520       3786048  4.2BSD   2048 16384   66 # Cyl  3756 -  3820 
  l:       1048320       3851568  4.2BSD   2048 16384  328 # Cyl  3821 -  4860 
  m:       2097648       4899888  4.2BSD   2048 16384  328 # Cyl  4861 -  6941 
  n:       4194288       6997536  4.2BSD   1024  8192   86 # Cyl  6942 - 11102 
  o:       2097648      11191824  4.2BSD   1024  8192   86 # Cyl 11103 - 13183 
  p:     143006913      13289472  4.2BSD   2048 16384  328 # Cyl 13184 -155055*

# df -k
Filesystem  1K-blocks      Used     Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/wd0a       64414     28570     32624    47%    /
/dev/wd0d       64446         2     61222     0%    /altroot
/dev/wd0p    70374168         2  66855458     0%    /home
/dev/wd0f     1030550    383890    595134    39%    /usr
/dev/wd0l      513710       204    487822     0%    /usr/local
/dev/wd0m     1030550         2    979022     0%    /usr/obj
/dev/wd0n     2030487         1   1928962     0%    /usr/ports
/dev/wd0o     1014807         1    964066     0%    /usr/src
/dev/wd0e       32198      1374     29216     4%    /var
/dev/wd0g       16310        32     15464     0%    /var/log
/dev/wd0h       64446         8     61216     0%    /var/mail
/dev/wd0i       48574        22     46124     0%    /var/spool
/dev/wd0j       24246         4     23030     0%    /var/tmp
/dev/wd0k       32198      3086     27504    10%    /var/www

Is it safe using this drive as is?

Can a future firmware release fix this issue with large drives?
(even if it is only aesthetical, the overflow in the HDD size is certainly
confusing.)

With the previous (non-enhanced) drive, a 64 GB Travelstar drive,
detected size was ok:

comBIOS ver. 1.28  20050529  Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Soekris Engineering.

net4801

0256 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Geode 266 Mhz 

Pri Mas  HTS541060G9AT00                 LBA Xlt 1024-255-63  58605 Mbyte
Pri Sla  SanDisk SDCFB-1024              LBA Xlt 993-32-63  1001 Mbyte

Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00:0 1078 0001 06000000 0107 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:06:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0000000 10
0:07:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0001000 10
0:08:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E301 A0002000 10
0:10:0 104C AC23 06040002 0107 0210 08 3F 01 00000000 00000000 
0:18:2 100B 0502 01018001 0005 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:19:0 0E11 A0F8 0C031008 0117 0280 08 38 00 A0003000 00000000 11
1:00:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000D001 A4000000 05
1:01:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000D101 A4001000 11

Cheers,
Igor.


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