XENIX 2.2.3 and >1024 h.d. cylinders: possible?

[Karl Denninger]

In article <4593 at cps3xx.UUCP> usenet at cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) writes:

>For people migrating up from a DOS machine with a big disk to XENIX it's
>hardware selection.....

>Why did the 1024 limit start? Well, the MSDOS defined partition table
>layout only allows 10bit cylinder numbers. So I could see if the
>machine was going to have DOS and XENIX partitions using the disk to
>stick with the MSDOS partition table layout. However, if someone wnated
>a XENIX only machine shouldn't XENIX be easily able to do its own
>hard disk boot sector to handle a partition table layout that is
>different? 

Xenix 2.3, I can assure you, will work with disks that have more than 1024
cylinders.  We routinely set them up with Maxstor XT4380Es and have no
problem disabling the "remap" code, or in some cases even the BIOS (flaky
system BIOS routines force this at times).  In that case you end up with
1224 cyls X 15 heads, which works fine and gives you full capacity.

I understand 2.2 can't hack this.  Now someone's saying 3.2 doesn't?  I
find it hard to believe that 2.3 can deal with it, but 3.2 (which is
supposed to be _more_ advanced) cannot.  Not having 3.2 here (yet) I can't
give you any first-hand information.

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
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