From: J.A. MacDonald (jay-m@equinox.unr.edu)
Date: 04/03/93


From: jay-m@equinox.unr.edu (J.A. MacDonald)
Subject: More fun with mke2fs and 1GB SCSI...
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1993 23:49:17 GMT


  Okay, I've been trying madly to get this 1 GB Maxtor SCSI drive to work
right with Linux. Being a newbie to both Unix & Linux I spent a lot of
time in trial and error mode, learned a hell of a lot and accomplished
(to me, anyway) a hell of a lot. However, it has gotten to the point where
my head is sore from beating it against the screen, so I'm posting this
in hopes of some light on the subject....

First problem: What fs to use
First solution: EXT2FS (found in FAQ)

Second problem: mke2fs out of memory
Second solution: Upgrade everything. I am now running Linux 0.99.7A with
                 EXT2 FS 0.2c

Third problem: Still out of memory
Third solution: enable 16 MB swap space (duh 8-)

That is how things stand today with the following results: I tried to
mke2fs the whole damn thing (997 cylinders, 1020927 blocks) and sat there
for 45 minutes, nothing happened. Assumed system went west and hard booted
the poor thing.

Next I tried a 400 MB and 600 MB partition arrangement. The 400 MB worked
great. When I tried mke2fs on the 600 MB it dumped out with the message

   mke2fs: unable to write super-block

Okay, so then I tried two 500 MB partitions. The first one worked great.
When I tried mke2fs on the second partition I got the super-block error
again. I can't find any reference to super-blocks in the FAQ's, so what's
it all about? Do I have a bad spot on my disk?

Finally I got really stupid and tried to mount that second 500 MB partition
(trial and error!) - result:

   Kernel panic: ext2_read_inode unable to read inode block

....

So, my next plans of attack are:

  - it seems that the fuckup happens between cylinders 500 & 600, so I'll
      try a partition from 600-997

  - Will the -c option of mke2fs help?

Also - can anybody shed some light on the situation with trying to format
a 1 GB partition?

Thanks for your time....

Jay MacDonald
Geosense Consulting
Reno, NV

-- 
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