Since bios update cannot install OS

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Well it turns out its not the ram after all, I managed to get into linux fdisk which has a lot more features interms of setting cylinders sectors etc.
And while playing with that I must of got it pretty close and it alowed me to install.
However it still crashes after a reboot with segmentation errors and things.
I think the ram was just coincidental but not the main cause.
Explain something to me I got some specs on this drive from maxtor however I have ended up with two sets and can not work out which is correct.
19679 cyl 16 hds 255 spt max lba 80293248
16383 cyl 16 hds 63 spt max lba 80293428
Any idea which is correct linux also tries to default to
4096 16 hds 255 spt

I tried the bios with all features but went back to your original as I thought it might be better, but might put it back now.

Jeff

[NickS]

jsurgeson wrote:

Well it turns out its not the ram after all, I managed to get into linux fdisk which has a lot more features in terms of setting cylinders sectors etc.

Does it not allow LBA instead of CHS (Cylinders/Heads/Sectors) ?

Explain something to me I got some specs on this drive from maxtor however I have ended up with two sets and can not work out which is correct.
19679 cyl 16 hds 255 spt max lba 80293248
16383 cyl 16 hds 63 spt max lba 80293428
Any idea which is correct linux also tries to default to
4096 16 hds 255 spt
Also:Please explain this to me as reported by maxtor utility
bios - 4997cyl 255hd 63spt
xbios logical - 4998cyl 255hd 63spt
xbios physical - 16383cyl 16hd 63spt

Various versions of BIOS and OS had different limits on different parts of the C/H/S combination. A good explanation of different limits is at:
http://www.allensmith.net/Hardware/Storage/HDDlimit/Limits.htm and an explanation of HDD addressing modes is at
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modes.htm
I would have expected both the LBA figures to be the same and correct.
Each sector is 512 bytes, so I would expect the total capacity to be 80,293,428*512 bytes using LBA, i.e. 41,110,235,136 bytes.
4998*255*63*512 = 41,109,949,440 bytes which is an approximation forced by trying to map to a geometry which does not really exist. Unfortunately, I haven't the Linux experience or knowledge to help you.

Nick

Thanks for the links I now understand a bit about the differance between logical and physical geometry.
Yes it is using lba as far as I can tell.
I have got it working now, how long before it crashes is another thing!