fdisk File size limit exceeded
 

I'm trying to format external USB drive (/dev/sda).
Just one extended partition and 7 logical volumes on it. Creating of extended partition and first logical goes well, but when I can't create any more - i get File size limit exceeded while trying to write the partition table.

I'm using SuSE SLES 7 2.4.7 kernel, usb 2.0 support is disabled in BIOS.

I've googled many post like mine, but can't find any actual solution (or I don't understand it - newbie here)

I do not understand why you want so many partitions on a USB disk. Maybe you have reached the limit? You could try setting it up as fewer partitions, then format each partition with mk2fs, or whatever filesystem you wish to create. Are you confusing partitioning (which is what you use fdisk for) with formatting ie creating a filesystem on a particular partition (eg /dev/sda1)?

I ment partitioning, and I do need 7 partitions on this drive (40Gig).

Maybe I have reached the limit of what?? Fdisk won't write more than 1 logical partition on this drive - is that the limit?

From man fdisk: "IDE disks can have up to 63 partitions, SCSI disks up to 15. See also /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt"

Your USB disk is treated as a SCSI disk (/dev/sda), so I guess your limit should be 15 partitions. But I have also heard that you can have a maximum of 4 Primary partitions, the rest must be Extended / Logical. You might try deleting the partitions you have already created, and starting again.

Perhaps you should try using cfdisk instead of fdisk, maybe that is different?

Also, why have you disabled USB 2.0 support in the BIOS? Maybe you should try enabling this?

I've tried all this - cfdisk, enabling USB 2.0, deleting all partitions and trying to create new ones - nothig works for me...

A 40 gigabyte hard drive should be easily read by 2.4.x kernels, so why are you spliting it into 7 partitions on usb storage device. Kernel version 2.4.x can handle up to 120 GB without re-compiling the kernel. You have to have at least one primary partition. Then the rest can be logical partitions in the extended partition.

cfdisk is fdisk.

I have made 3 primary partitions and 6 logical partitions. If my math is right, it will be 9 partitions. Can anybody check my math. :scratch:

If you are only creating logical partitions is the extended partition the size of the entire disk?

Make sure you are really trying to create a logical partiton. i.e. IDs are >=5.

extended partition covers whole disk and I'm starting with /dev/sda5

interesting thing is that i have this problem only on few machines, other ones do ok.
I am sure that hard drives are ok, I can format them under windows without any problems.
Could it be possible that the problem is rather with usb-manager or other usb-releted module?

It could be a USB related problem. I've never tried to partition a USB drive into 7 partitions.