Hi community,
Have found a tutorial (source: http://www.brain4free.org/wiki/doku.php/blog:wd_advanced_format_hd_mit_linux), translated it from german:
Good description of the problem:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3691&p=2
Using linux with WDxxEARS HDDs is possible but to install them correctly is a bit tricky:
For using WDxxEARS with linux no special software is required. But it is absolutely necessary to partition your HDD correctly. Under Windows XP or under linux using fdisk or parted with default settings WDxxEARS HDDs get partitioned incorrectly. To test, how and where your partitions got created, you can use fdisk:
fdisk -l -u
A typical incorrect example will look like that:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sdc1 63 2930272064 1465136001 83 Linux
It is absolutely necessary, that start- and end-parameter are divisible by 4. Default settings in fdisk, parted and Windows XP do not manage that problem. For Windows XP you need this separate Utility: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/index.asp
For linux, this tutorial will help:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/20/aligning-filesystems-to-an-ssds-erase-block-size/
fdisk using this parameters creates all partitions aligned to 4 KByte blockboundaries:
fdisk -H 224 -S 56 /dev/sdb
Create Partitions and for security reasons test them in the end.
gparted-gui does not work. You have to use parted in console. You have to ensure that your partitions begin and end at 4 KByte blockboundaries. You manage that by swiching parted showing all units in KByte. Dead shot exactly in Kibibyte ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte). All Numbers you give in then have to be divisible by 4.
Example for an HDD with one partition (Notice the command “unit kib”):
parted /dev/sdb(parted) unit kib(parted) printModel: ATA WDC WD15EARS-00Z (scsi)Disk /dev/sdc: 1465138584kiBSector size (logical/physical): 512B/512BPartition Table: msdosNumber Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 31.5kiB 1465136032kiB 1465136001kiB primary xfs(parted) mkpartPartition type? primary/extended? pFile system type? [ext2]? xfsStart? 32End? 1465138584(parted) printModel: ATA WDC WD15EARS-00Z (scsi)Disk /dev/sdc: 1465138584kiBSector size (logical/physical): 512B/512BPartition Table: msdosNumber Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 32.0kiB 1465138584kiB 1465138552kiB primary
Hope this will help many people.
Best regards,
hans1967
