[Beowulf] Weird CentOS Install Problem

[Jason Clinton]

On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 9:57 PM, Jon Forrest <jlforrest at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Matt Lawrence wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, Jon Forrest wrote:
>>
>>> What's weird about this is that the root file system starts
>>> on cylinder 1, as confirmed by the fdisk command. This is
>>> using a brand new SuperMicro X7SBE motherboard with the
>>> newest BIOS.
>>
>> I suggest you create a /boot partition of about 200MB.
>
> On Monday I'm going to try various combinations of file systems
> and partition sizes. The first one I'm going to try will
> be the default CentOS arrangement.
>
> This is a really strange problem to me. I'm guessing
> the problem is in the 3ware BIOS. After all, tons
> of people use 80GB drives (and larger) with no problems.
> The fact that an 80GB device carved by the 3ware BIOS/firmware
> doesn't work makes me suspect the 3ware device.
>
> I'm also going to call 3ware.

Think of the 80GB slice as the "OS" volume rather than the "boot"
volume. You still need a boot partition within this "OS" volume
situated at the beginning of the disk. The boot partition doesn't need
to be larger than 100-200MB.

A good reason to use a "OS" slice is to use MS-DOS style partition
tables for that slice and leave the remaining space on your array to
be controlled by the GPT format partition table.

And this is one of the many reasons that we'll all be happier when EFI
replaces BIOS.