[ale] LILO Problem

[Jeff Barber]

Bob Toxen writes:

> Also, more than 1024 cylinders is NOT a problem.  Just ensure that your DOS
> partition lies entirely within the first 1024.

As I understand it, this is not quite right.  A better way to say it is
that more than 1024 cylinders is not a problem *for the Linux kernel*.

It may still be a problem for LILO which, if I'm not mistaken, uses the
BIOS to load Linux.  So, you may have a problem if your kernel doesn't
lay within the first 1024 cylinders when LILO tries to load it.  If your
BIOS supports LBA (Logical Block Addressing), you can reshuffle the disk
geometry to get around the problem (double the number of heads while
halving the number of cylinders, repeat until #cylinders < 1024).
Otherwise, you need to ensure that LILO isn't asked to read anything from
a cylinder numbered 1024 or above.  Usually that's done by making at
least one partition fully contained within the first 1024 cylinders.


-- Jeff