On 08/18/2011 08:33 AM, Connie Sieh wrote:
> 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

I have read this, and have tried to use the tools as provided in SL 6.1 
.  The partitioning fails.

I also have attempted to build parted-3.0 with libparted 3.0 .  Although 
parted-3.0 does build from source (configure, make), the library it 
seems to produce is not the latest library and does seem to not support 
beyond the 512 byte limit.  Is there a flag to configure to force the 
larger sector/block size?

Thus, at present, I am still not able to partition and format a WD 
advanced format drive.

As a last resort, I may try an OpenSUSE current live DVD and use that to 
format the drive.

Any other suggestions?

Yasha Karant