[1672] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: Linux (SCSI) Installation Woes...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (art s. kagel IFMX x2697)
Wed Apr 2 16:38:31 1997
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 16:31:49 -0500 (EST)
From: "art s. kagel IFMX x2697" <kagel@dg1.bloomberg.com>
To: Michael Weller <eowmob@exp-math.uni-essen.de>
Cc: Jon Lewis <jlewis@inorganic5.fdt.net>,
"F. Woodbridge" <fwoodbri@oe.fau.edu>, linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.95.970402184354.96856D-100000@werner.exp-math.uni-essen.de>
See my comments below:
Art S. Kagel, kagel@ts1.bloomberg.com
On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Michael Weller wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Jon Lewis wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, F. Woodbridge wrote:
> >
> > > Everything's fine in the booting up process until the following:
> > >
> > > scsi: detected 1 SCSI cdrom 4 SCSI disks 1 SCSI tape
> > > sda: unsupported sector size 620756992
> > > scsi: deleting disk entry
> > > sdb: unsupported sector size 620756992
> > > scsi: deleting disk entry
> > ...
[SNIP]
>
> b) I heard of cheapo second source SCSI disks, for example those of old
> AS/400 by IBM. I believe this is the case here.
>
> These weird machines use weird sector sizes. like 520 bytes instead of
> 512 or something. Linux cannot use such weird sector sizes. (the
> blocks of filessystems do not fit nicely on them). At least not now.
> The changes required to support these devices are really fundamental
> to any linux kernel code.
>
[SNIP]
> If your drives are from an AS/400 or something I'd like to get some
> feedback if the values could be changed. Occasionally this question
> shows up but I never heard how it ended (drives could be made to work
> or the params could not be changed).
>
On most SCSI drives the sector sizes can be changed if the drive accepts
sizes other than the standard. This is certainly true of IBM drives, I
have one which was originally formatted with 520 byte sectors. Any ASPI
aware drivers will allow you to change the sector size before
reformatting if this is the problem.
