installing with cylinders>16383

[Ross Lippert]

Hi,
I have a 40GB drive which reports its true number of cylinders
to fdisk instead of 16383.  From what I have read, >8.4GB disks
can have more than 16383 cylinders, but should still report just
16383 because modern disks give their size information via
a different interface.  Either I have misinterpreted the standard
or this is a non-standard disk.

Either way, sysinstall complains during the fdisk phase that
this drive configuration is 'impossible' and picks other values
for the C/H/S info, suggesting that I put the geom in by hand
during fdisk.  I did the (g) option and entered in what I thought
was the right thing 16383/16/63.  The install proceeded and things
seem to work.  The reported size of the disk never changed through
any of this.  But I wonder, was the the right thing to do?
Should I have taken the 4863/255/63 numbers that sysinstall
suggested?

I am not subscribed to this list, so please respond directly.

thanks,



-r