Disk geometry and /etc/disktab

[Charles Anderson]

>From article <2698 at dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, by jim at jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski):
> The characteristics of a disk drive's geometry needs to be included in A/UX
> 2.0 /etc/disktab file. There are two ways of getting this information: either
> from SCSI Evaluator OR LaCie SilverLining.
> 
> My trouble is that both return DIFFERENT values for the number of cylinders
> for all my hard disks. Which should I believe? For example, for my Quantum
> 80 (the newer 3 1/2 inch) SCSI Eval. returns 834 cylnders, whereas SL returns
> 837 (and 6 heads, 32 sectors/track)... (SL is 5.24/09 and SCSI Eval is
> both 1.00 and 1.03)

Actually the best way would be to read the drive manual or call the
drive manufacturer (I beleive Quantum's number is 408/432-1100, or call
Milpitas information).  Unfortunately my Pro Series drive manual is at
home.  Since you seem to have the cylinder dimensions (6x32), you could
cheat and use dd on slice 31 (whole disk) with bs=192.  This will take
a while, but it should return the cylinder count.

-- 

Charles.             {sun, ucbvax, pyramid, uunet}!unisoft!cander

"Unix is the Winchester Mystery House of software design."  -- me