Hard disk geometry

Andrew Clausen (clausen@alphalink.com.au)
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 19:40:41 -0400


Hi all, please cc me, I'm off the list...

I'm writing a Partition Magic clone, called GNU parted
(www.gnu.org/software/parted) which NEEDS to know hard disk geometry
to be compatible with other operating systems, using the term loosely.

Linux doesn't seem to be very good at detecting geometry (i.e. sectors
per
track, and heads per cylinder). There's a comment in the code
suggesting
int 13 be called when Linux is in real mode, because this is the most
reliable way of getting a hard disk's geometry.

Are there any objections to me implementing this? Are there any
preferred
alternatives? What's the best way of communicating with the real-mode
code and the driver? How about setting (but not overriding) kernel
parameters?

Andrew Clausen

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