an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Hittinger) (06/14/91)
Where I work we have to pump these parameters up as well. We are currently running Xenix 2.3.2 on 286 and 386 platforms. The only time I ran in to a problem similar to yours is when I had a 1.2 gig disk. The number of cylinders is greater than 1024, and when I re-linked the kernel, part of /xenix wound up beyond the 1024'th cylinder. When you boot, the bios only supports reading out to the 1024'th cylinder, it wraps around if you go over. Weird things happen. We called SCO and they denied they were using the bios for the bootstrap. Maybe in SCO/UNIX. Anyway, I would up doing an "fsck -S" to re-order the free list. Then I re-linked xenix and prayed that all of it fit inside 1024 cylinders. It worked. I have had this happen more than a couple of times and fsck -S has always bailed me out. good luck -- Mark Hittinger [answering machine (606)-272-2424 PO BOX 43358 Middletown, KY 40243
timr@sco.COM (Tim Ruckle) (06/28/91)
In article <9106140353.AA29542@cwns1.INS.CWRU.Edu> an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu writes: } } Where I work we have to pump these parameters up as well. We are currently } running Xenix 2.3.2 on 286 and 386 platforms. } The only time I ran in to a problem similar to yours is when I had a 1.2 gig } disk. The number of cylinders is greater than 1024, and when I re-linked } the kernel, part of /xenix wound up beyond the 1024'th cylinder. } When you boot, the bios only supports reading out to the 1024'th cylinder, it } wraps around if you go over. Weird things happen. We called SCO and they } denied they were using the bios for the bootstrap. Maybe in SCO/UNIX. The ROM BIOS is indeed used at boottime--it reads the master boot block (first 512 bytes of the active partition). As you've found out, the limitation in the BIOS will pose a problem if your kernel has blocks that're out past 1024 cylinders. Perhaps the person you talked to misunderstood your question, since once you're booted XENIX/UNIX will never use the BIOS. } Anyway, I would up doing an "fsck -S" to re-order the free list. Then I } re-linked xenix and prayed that all of it fit inside 1024 cylinders. It } worked. I have had this happen more than a couple of times and fsck -S } has always bailed me out. Keeping the free list ordered is always a good idea, and this is a good approach. If this does not work, you may have to get more creative to workaround this limitation: backing up parts of the system that were layed down during the install, and then removing them to free up those disk blocks. Some controllers allow you to spoof the parameters when you format-- using more heads but fewer cylinders than actually exist on the disk. If the disk appears to have less than 1024 cylinders then you should never run into this BIOS limitation. -timr -- Usenet: !{uunet,ucbvax!ucscc,decvax!microsof}!sco!timr, ...!mcsun!ukc!scol!timr Internet: [MX handlers] timr@sco.COM [others] timr%sco.COM@ucscc.UCSC.EDU USPS: The Santa Cruz Operation, 400 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1900 PSDN: [voice] (408) 425-7222 [fax] (408) 458-4227 [twx] 910-598-4510 SCO SACZ