Re: Parted CHS patch

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

I apologize for the long delay in responding.

Andrew Clausen <address@hidden> writes:

> Yes and yes.
> 
> What's a good UI?
> 
>       # parted /dev/hda 23583/128/32
>       (parted) select /dev/hda 23583/128/32

Whatever is simplest for you.  I will be invoking it programmatically,
anyway.

> Should Parted override this geometry if it can infer it from the
> partition table?

Definitely not by default.  I want this feature because the partition
table may be wrong (e.g., a drive which is moved between incompatible
systems).

> Should it ask?
> 
> Eg:
> 
>       You told Parted that /dev/hda has geometry 23583/128/32.
>       However, the partitions on /dev/hda say that /dev/hda has
>       geometry 14556/255/63.  If you select Fix, then Parted will
>       tell the partition table that 23583/128/32 is the correct
>       geometry.  If you select Ignore, then Parted will assume that
>       14556/255/63 is correct.
> 
>       Fix/Ignore/Cancel?

This is fine, as long as Parted's "-s" switch defaults to "Fix".  I
invoke Parted from a script which knows exactly what geometry it wants
to use, regardless of what is already on the drive.

> If the user selects "fix", should Parted also replace the Bios Parameter
> Blocks in FAT and NTFS file systems?

This does not matter for my application, which typically involves
blowing away the entire partition table anyway.  So I have no strong
opinion either way.  In general, though, if I specify a geometry and
ask for it to be "fixed", you can assume I know what I am doing.  So
my call would be to fix everything you can to match what I ask for.

Thanks!

 - Pat