On 07/28/2011 01:38 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> You state:
>
> Although the formatting was not done on SL6, SL6 did
> install on the existing partitions and seems to be working fine.
>
> On what system using what utilities did you format the WD drives?
For the SL6 system the partitioning was either done with whatever
anaconda on Fedora 12 uses or fdisk on Fedora 13.
> I have installed SL 6 on existing partitions on other drives with no
> issue -- but the SL 6 install on these WD bare drives using the default
> disk format/partitions/block size/... from the SL 6 installation GUI
> (that appears to be very, very similar to the stock RHEL 6 installation
> GUI) did not produce a correct partition structure.
I have CentOS 5 systems on 2 TB GP drives which were done with anaconda
and they don't seem to be having any issues either.
Here's a CentOS 5 fdisk dump where the partitioning was done with Anaconda:
# fdisk /dev/sda
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 243201.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1024 8225248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1025 243201 1945286752+ 8e Linux LVM
Here's an SL6 fdisk dump where the partitioning was done with Fedora 12:
# fdisk /dev/sdb
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/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf8ecd816
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 243201 1953512001 8e Linux LVM
Interesting that it does not detect physical sector size of 4096. Maybe
the MultSect=16 thing is masking that, or maybe LVM is, but regardless
it just works. I have never had any issues with any GP drive. What
exactly isn't working when you partition with SL6?
> The fact that WD insists that one run a utility only under a MS
> environment (or FreeDOS, a MSDOS workalike monitor) seems a difficult
> way to maintain a system. Will the utility work under Wine/CrossOver?
Agreed, that is silly. I just made a freedos live USB stick with
wdidle3.exe on it. I could not get it to run from linux/wine or even
Windoze.
This may not even be an issue any more but it certainly was on my early
GP drives. Keep an eye on your SMART params. If you see load cycle
numbers <10,000 you are probably OK. I think the drives are spec'd for
600,000 load cycles.
Jeff
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