On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, Yasha Karant wrote:

> I booted a machine from the SL 6.1 install DVD to install upon an
> unformatted drive that appeared as /dev/sde.  The drive is an advanced
> format Western Digital unit.
>
> The install failed at the partitioning format that I did as a custom
> format.  Unfortunately, there was no way to capture the detailed message
> -- I tried scp but the local network security configuration prevented
> this from working.
>
> After the failure, I rebooted the machine and used fdisk /dev/sde to
> find out what I could.
>
> The result is:
>
> [root@jb344 ykarant]# fdisk /dev/sde
>
> The device presents a logical sector size that is smaller than
> the physical sector size. Aligning to a physical sector (or optimal
> I/O) size boundary is recommended, or performance may be impacted.
>
> WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
>          switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
>          sectors (command 'u').
>
> Command (m for help): p
>
> Disk /dev/sde: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x000656df
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sde1               1        1275    10240000   83  Linux
> /dev/sde2            1275      103261   819200000   83  Linux
>
> One may note that the 4096 bytes that the disk internally uses is
> observed as a physical sector size, but there is an attempt to use a 512
> byte logical sector size.
> I need to force the formatting to use a 4096 byte logical and physical
> sector size.
> I did use a custom partitioning during the failed install.
>
> Evidently, this cannot be done using the GUI installation from the
> installation DVD.
> Can I do it from my existing OS and then proceeding to install without
> modifying the partitions I would layout?
>
> Yasha Karant
>

Please read this

  http://karelzak.blogspot.com/2010/05/4096-byte-sector-hard-drives.html

-connie sieh