I booted a machine from the SL 6.1 install DVD to install upon an
unformatted drive that appeared as /dev/sde. The drive is an advanced
format Western Digital unit.
The install failed at the partitioning format that I did as a custom
format. Unfortunately, there was no way to capture the detailed message
-- I tried scp but the local network security configuration prevented
this from working.
After the failure, I rebooted the machine and used fdisk /dev/sde to
find out what I could.
The result is:
[root@jb344 ykarant]# fdisk /dev/sde
The device presents a logical sector size that is smaller than
the physical sector size. Aligning to a physical sector (or optimal
I/O) size boundary is recommended, or performance may be impacted.
WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
sectors (command 'u').
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sde: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000656df
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 1 1275 10240000 83 Linux
/dev/sde2 1275 103261 819200000 83 Linux
One may note that the 4096 bytes that the disk internally uses is
observed as a physical sector size, but there is an attempt to use a 512
byte logical sector size.
I need to force the formatting to use a 4096 byte logical and physical
sector size.
I did use a custom partitioning during the failed install.
Evidently, this cannot be done using the GUI installation from the
installation DVD.
Can I do it from my existing OS and then proceeding to install without
modifying the partitions I would layout?
Yasha Karant
