Conference noted::ibmpc-95

    You can only create one primary DOS partition per drive. The remaining
    spce should be specified as an extended partition. You can then
    segment the extended partition by creating logical drives within it.
    
    /Rich

>          <<< Note 2969.1 by WRKSYS::THOMAS "Stop, look and listen" >>>
>
>    You can only create one primary DOS partition per drive. The remaining
>    spce should be specified as an extended partition. You can then
>    segment the extended partition by creating logical drives within it.

But with OS2, FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris x86 I know you _can_ have more 
than one Primary Partition, (come to think of it, with IBM's PC DOS, you 
_can_ too, and I belive with MS-DOS you can as well.)

I know I can have only one ACTIVE primary partition and all that with things 
like DOS, OS2 etc.  But that has nothing to do with my problem.

MikeC

I seem to remember being chided about some 2GB boundary crock the last time
I setup a 2.5GB drive for a friend.  Fortunately, the system I was working
on didn't demonstrate the crock, so I didn't stick around long enough to
read the warning messages.  Perhaps this is a manifestation?  I only wish I
knew enough about the problem to speak more intelligently about it.

You can have a maximum of four primary partitions, or 3 primary 
partitions and 1 extended partition. (and, yes, only one of the 
primary partitions can be designated as active).

Actually, only one of the primary partitions SHOULD be designated as
active, although it was once possible to designate all as active.  I s'pose
most FDISK clones no longer allow this.

The first hard disk limitation is 540 Mbytes - a motherboard has to 
have LBA (Logical Block Addressing) support in BIOS to address disks 
larger than 540 Mbytes directly (i.e., without partitioning). The 
other limitation appears at 2.1 Gbytes - the 16 bit FAT support in 
DOS and WINDOWS-95 prior to OEM Release 2 cannot address disks larger 
than 2.1 Gbytes. WINDOWS95 OEM R2 provides 32 bit FAT, but this may 
render the disk unreadable by WINDOWS NT (I'm still looking into this 
one). Microsoft claims that 32 bit FAT is only available on new 
installations, but notes in this notesfile provide information on 
"Upgrading"

Frank Garabo
Senior Software Consultant
DEC NSIS Orlando, FL

Naw, there was some other 2 GB (other than partition size limit) that
something was griping at me about.  Both the documentation that came with a
2.5GB WD drive, and Partition Magic mumbled something about it.  Like I
said, it wasn't my system, and it wasn't a problem, so I didn't pay much
attention.

>     <<< Note 2969.0 by FREE::CAMBRIA "Still worrying about deck chairs" >>>
>                         -< Can't use entire 2.1gig? >-

The answer to the question I asked is simple.  There was a bug in OS2 
Warp V4.  It can't deal with EIDE disks using LBA on the SECOND controller.

Once I move the disk to the slave on the first controller (setting the 
existing disk from only to master), I able to do everything I described 
in .0 (also shown below) that I wanted to do.

I can boot from anywhere on all 3 disks now.  For fun, I've even made 
sure that anything bootable is well past 1024 cyls on the disks.

>I have a Western Digital EIDE 2113 gig disk that I'm having some problems
>using.  (Bios says 2112MB via auto-detect, fdisk says 2114MB)
>
>The disk was a xmas gift (instead of clothing I'd never wear :-) and
>I've been using about 300MB, on a primary partition, with no problem
>since the new year.  The rest of the space was unused.  (The disk
>physically replaced an older disk.)
>
>I've been using about 300MB, on a primary partition, with no problem
>since the new year.  The rest of the space was unused.  (The disk
>physically replaced an older disk.)
>
>This last week, I've had time to (try to) make use of all the new space.
>
>The problem is that I can't use _all_ of the disk.  fdisk (OS2 Warp V4
>mostly, but I did try once with Dos 6.x) cannot create 4 primary partitions
>on the disk using all of it.  Well it can, but the next time I run fdisk
>I get the message "Partition Table on disk 2 may be corrupted" under OS2.
>(Under DOS, fdisk tells me it can't access disk 2;  however, if I tell
>it go display the current settings for that disk, it does).
>
>I've tried numerous partitioning schemes.  The first 2 primary partitions
>are always no more the 500MB combined.  A sample:
>
>        primary  300MB unformatted
>        primary  200MB unformatted
>        primary 1200MB unformatted
>        primary  314MB unformatted
>
>Now, if I only use 3 primary partitions, leaving the 314MB at the end
>"free", I have no problem.  Likewise, if I create 4 primary partitions,
>but leave 2MB "unused",
>
>        primary  300MB unformatted
>        primary  200MB unformatted
>        primary 1200MB unformatted
>        primary  312MB unformatted
>    unavailable    2MB
>
>things seem to work just fine.  (Note:  I've not tried to even format
>any except the first 300MB partition so far, so I don't know if the
>above "really" work yet.)
>
>The system:
>        P/I-P55TP4XE MotherBoard w/96MB 60ns EDO RAM, 512K L2 cache
>        Award Bios (latest available from ASUStek for this MB)
>
>        EIDE controller 0 has a 1 gig Western Digital EIDE drive,
>            auto-detected as 1083MB using LBA.
>
>        EIDE controller 1 has a 1 gig Western Digital EIDE drive,
>            auto-detected as 2112 MB using LBA.
>
>        (both EIDE controllers are builtin to the motherboard; both
>        disks are master disks.)
>
>        Adaptec PCI AHA-2940 PCI-Fast SCSI controller with a
>                Segate Hawk 2LP 1010MB SCSI-2 disk (ST31230N)
>
>        (video, modems, lan etc. not described.)