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[Felix Miata]

On 2007/12/15 20:00 (GMT) Dr P Dupre apparently typed:

> When I tried to install FC7 on a disk with more than 16 partition, it 
> failed because complains at the isntallation. So I had to reformat the
> disk. I did not want to have to face the same problem with another
> computer with more than 16 partitions. If I remember one problem is
> with fdisk and maybe udev.

AFAICT, Fedora 7+ provides no option for accessing partitions above 15 as
other contemporary distros do. So, you need to either rework your entire
philosophy and implementation of partitioning on those disks, which means
using LVM if you need to carve your disk into logical subdivisions, or switch
to a distro that still supports the traditional 62 partition per ATA disk
limit, such as OpenSUSE or Mandriva.

The limit problem is from neither fdisk nor udev, but the kernel drivers for
hard disks. The default driver system was changed roughly a year ago. AFAICT,
Fedora 7+ doesn't offer the optional legacy disk driver system that other
contemporary distros offer.

If you're up to the task, a third possible option would be to install F7 or
F8 to an accessible partition, then rebuild the kernel to include the
traditional drivers and prefer them to libata.

FWIW, the SCSI system that the default libata drivers use is limited to 14
partitions with filesystems. 0 is the whole disk. 16 is past the limit. One
of the remaining 15 is reserved for the extended container, leaving the
actual place usable filesystems can live at 14.

The legacy system permits 62, same as FC6 and prior. I have several disks
with more than 40.
-- 
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and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to
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 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/