fdisk -l says that my hard drive is 112 GB less then what it is??

SuperDude123 · 12-13-2009, 12:04 PM

I recently zeroed a hard drive, and after doing a fdisk -l, it says that the disk is 137.4 GB, while its supposed to be a 250 GB. To get to a terminal from a clean system, I used BasicLinux 3.40 from an Ultimate Boot CD. Could this be a problem with BL 3.4? Should I have used an other tool on the UBCD? Is the hard drive bad? I also have at my disposal a Hiren's Boot CD, Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu 9.04, and a Debian 5.0 install CD.

jefro · 12-13-2009, 01:00 PM

It is a bios issue would be my guess. See posts on 137 gig limit.

David1357 · 12-13-2009, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperDude123

I recently zeroed a hard drive, and after doing a fdisk -l, it says that the disk is 137.4 GB, while its supposed to be a 250 GB.

The problem is that your kernel probably only supports 28-bit addressing:

Code:

    2^28 sectors * 512 bytes/sector = 268435456 bytes
    268435456 / (1000 ^ 3) = 137.4 GB

I don't think it is a BIOS issue because once the kernel boots, it no longer uses the BIOS for interfacing with the hard drive.

The version of BasicLinux you are trying to use has a 2.2.26 version of the kernel. That kernel is over 5.5 years old, and probably does not have support for 48-bit addressing.

Try booting from Ubuntu 9.10 if that is the latest thing you have.

AwesomeMachine · 12-13-2009, 01:55 PM

It's either a kernel or bios issue. 137.4 GB is exactly the limit for 28 bit addressing. Whatever distro/hardware you're using must be ancient.

SuperDude123 · 12-13-2009, 02:02 PM

How do I load up a terminal window from a Live CD? I've had difficulty with the 9.10 CD, where I can't see the applications tab on the top, so is their a keyboard shortcut to open a terminal? I also have a Debian 5.0 CD, maybe I can use that?

paulsm4 · 12-13-2009, 02:12 PM

Try <Ctl-Alt-F1> (or <Ctl-Alt-F2>, <Ctl-Alt-F3>, etc). These should open up virtual text-mode consoles 1, 2, 3, etc.

ALSO:
As far as the desktop being cut off - it sounds like the screen resolution needs to be changed:

1. Try hitting "F4" at startup; see if that lets you change to a different screen resolution

2. Look here for advice on modifying your "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" (either directly, or using various "tricks"):

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtop...=11182&start=0

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-cha...in-ubuntu.html

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-adj...on-ubuntu.html

'Hope that helps .. PSM

PS:
'Glad you found the reason for your original hard drive problem - that "BasicLinux" had an obsolete kernel, which only supported drives up to 137GB.

SuperDude123 · 12-13-2009, 02:25 PM

Ok that doesn't seem to work with Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD.....I can try with the 9.04, but is their something like that for the Debian CD? I don't think Debian lets me run it "live" ?

David1357 · 12-14-2009, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperDude123

Ok that doesn't seem to work with Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD.

Save yourself some time and get System Rescue CD.