From: drew@ophelia.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) Subject: Re: how to fdisk a SCSI drive Date: 6 Jul 1992 02:22:51 GMT
In article <710203390.F00005@fast.fido.de> Oliver.Otto@f2006.n241.z2.fidonet.org (Oliver Otto) writes:
>Hello Wolfgang!
>
>Mittwoch, 01 Juli 1992, Wolfgang Zilgens writes to All:
>
> WZ> When I want to install Linux at home, I get some problems concerning
> WZ> my SCSI HD (WD4200) 200MB with the Adaptec 1542b:
> WZ> the Linux v0.96b boots correct, but when I want to use fdisk it
>doesn't
> WZ> work; when I start fdisk, nothing happens and I return to prompt. Then
>I
> WZ> tried to use pfdisk, with the message to change the HD-params; but
> WZ> all params I tried were wrong.
>
>I do have the same problems using the AHA 1542B and a Fujitsu drive :-|
>
>Oliver
>
> _____ _____ _____ ___
> / _ / / __/ / __/ / / Oliver Otto
> / // / __\ \ __\ \ / / FIDO: 2:241/2006
>/...././..../. /..../. /../. INTERNET: OLIVER.OTTO@OSSI.FIDO.DE
Read the FAQ, recently posted to the news group.
1. The fdisk program DOES NOT READ THE SCSI DISKS. The device
names are hardcoded into it. A work around is to
mknod the /dev/hd* entries with the SCSI major / minor
numbers, but this can't be done on a distribution
because it breaks things for other people.
2. The scsi disks are NOT /dev/hd{a,b}*. They use
a SEPARATE block device
major = 8
minor = 16 * disk (0 based, assigned sequentially) +
partition (1 based), with 0 being the whole drive.
You must use mknod(1) to create a block special device
for your disk
mknod /dev/sd0 b 8 0
mknod /dev/sd0a b 8 1
etc.
The name is unimportant, the b for block, 8 for SCSI
disk, and minor numbers are VERY important.
Don't partition the SCSI disks under Linux, unless you
*KNOW* the geometry, and have a tool that works (ie,
pfdisk, provided with the device name). DOS can see
the BIOS geometry table for the disks, and you should
have no problem running pfdisk under DOS.