From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760718AbYDVUQR (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:16:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753267AbYDVUQE (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:16:04 -0400 Received: from rv-out-0708.google.com ([209.85.198.247]:13008 "EHLO rv-out-0506.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751383AbYDVUQC (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:16:02 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=d1BX/Fl2PFLKLBKyGqnYpoVyTimW9fc8N9RGV1XyEWH2kKcar9xwdpPE5x1iEwhVk/UZ3GBzqm6Myv4Otlojz+tsQQUbDHo4TYxQJeuVvZUFEx5sdI2q9XtwarIfqK8vRIxcvDnTF9rC9ycXCYu7F9EFpwwtrQfgogNbH51M4cc= Message-ID: <38b2ab8a0804221316o7cab5641q16814849a1099b9a@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:16:01 +0200 From: "Francis Moreau" To: "Mark Lord" Subject: Re: Disk geometry from /sys Cc: "Seewer Philippe" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <4808A09B.6090106@rtr.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <38b2ab8a0804091353h3725ce29s196e27e8b4f1ff56@mail.gmail.com> <480354C9.1050600@bfh.ch> <38b2ab8a0804150040i14840a9fudc3b95ba80d52ac1@mail.gmail.com> <4805AF93.90209@bfh.ch> <38b2ab8a0804170709m58830adagcba46f059ed10809@mail.gmail.com> <4807635E.9060101@bfh.ch> <4808A09B.6090106@rtr.ca> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hello Mark On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Mark Lord wrote: > That can sound a bit misleading. The complete story, for ATA/SATA drives, > is that the disk has two geometries: an internal physical one, with a > fixed number of heads and cylinders, but variable sectors/track > (which normally varies by cylinder zone). > > Software *never* sees or knows about that geometry, so ignore it. > > The second geometry, is the one that the drive reports to software > as its "native" geometry. This is what you see from "hdparm -I" > and friends, and this geometry is what has to be used by software > when using cylinder/head/sector (CHS) addressing for I/O operations. > The hardware interface has a limit of 4-bits for the head value, > so the maximum number of heads can never be more than 16. > > Nobody uses CHS addressing for I/O operations, at least not on > any hardware newer than at least ten years old, so this geometry > is also unimportant for most uses. > Is it because IDE drives support several IO operation modes ? thanks -- Francis