[CentOS] 64 bit hardware and filesystem size limit -- [OT] GRUB/Parted for LDM

Tue Aug 23 17:30:20 UTC 2005
Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>

Joshua Baker-LePain <jlb17 at duke.edu> wrote:
> No.  fdisk can't handle disks bigger than 2TiB.  You have
> to use parted.  In addition, you can't use msdos (the
> default) disk labels on disks bigger than 2TiB -- you must
> use gpt disk labels.  This means that can't boot from a
> >2TiB disk, as neither grub nor lilo understand gpt
> disk labels.

I thought LILO just dumbly booted an absolute sector offset?
Or is the lack of a MBR in GPT Disk Labels?

With that said -- since I've found *0* info elsewhere -- does
anyone know the status of getting Microsoft NT5 (2000+)
Logical Disk Manager (LDM)** disk label aka "Dynamic Disc"
support in GRUB/Parted?

The kernel has the disk label support for LDM.  LDM also
looks like a legacy BIOS/DOS disk label aka "Basic Disc" with
a legacy MBR and Type 42 slice, so that solves that problem. 
LILO is just a can boot a absolute sector in the LDM.  But
there is no LDM support in Parted for slicing or GRUB for
booting.

LDM support would solve, once and for all, all those nasty
geometry and other dual-boot issues.  Especially for Windows
XP SP2+ as Microsoft has been changing its geometry and using
portions of the MBR for legacy BIOS/DOS disks to store
information that would normally go in the defined LDM stores.

-- Bryan

**NOTE:  I haven't build a Windows XP/2003 system with
anything more than a 2.2TB (2TiB) volume/filesystem, so
correct me if LDM doesn't support >2.2TB (>2TiB) without
being in something like a GPT disk label.  I know the GPT
disk label is used on IA-64, and then LDM in it, but I assume
Microsoft would have made LDM >2.2TB supporting since it just
came out in 1999 (NT5/2000).


-- 
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