From owner-freebsd-geom@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 18 00:10:33 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9E146DC3 for ; Sun, 18 May 2014 00:10:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8020E2472 for ; Sun, 18 May 2014 00:10:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 022593AC90 for ; Sat, 17 May 2014 17:00:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" To: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GEOM_PART: Integrity check failed (ada2, MBR) In-Reply-To: <20140517162513.GG43976@funkthat.com> Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 17:00:56 -0700 Message-ID: <73415.1400371256@server1.tristatelogic.com> X-BeenThere: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: GEOM-specific discussions and implementations List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 00:10:33 -0000 In message <20140517162513.GG43976@funkthat.com>, John-Mark Gurney wrote: >Ronald F. Guilmette wrote this message on Fri, May 16, 2014 at 12:38 -0700: >> >> In message <20140516130346.GB43976@funkthat.com>, >> John-Mark Gurney wrote: >> >Wow, I just noticed this... FreeBSD is only seeing it as a 31MB drive >> >instead of a 1TB drive... This is probably the problem... >> >> OHHHHH! Wow! Yea. That is MESSED UP! >> ... >Can you get a memstick of 11-CURRENT from: >https://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/ >and get the output of: >camcontrol identify ada2 -v >from a boot of the memstick? mav thinks that it might be an issue w/ >HPA, and this should help track it down. I don't think that there is any need anymore for me to do the above steps. I am now convinced that I do know what has caused this rather remarkable (and remarkably annoying) problem. I had forgotten all about this, until now, but there is apparently a known problem where older (pre-2010) Gigabyte motherboards will in fact create a Host Protected Area (HPA) on the ``first'' ATA drive in a given system, *and* that in cases where the drive is 1TB or larger, the result will be a drive that self-identifies as being only 31 (or 32) megabytes big. (You can google for this known problem and you'll find a _lot_ of references to it.) The specific 1 TB drive on which I experienced this problem had been working just fine with no problems whatsoever on another system that I have here. However I made the mistake of trying to put it into my #2 desktop system, which is based on a vintage 2006 Gigabyte motherboard. I now firmly believe that this caused the specific form of corruption that now afflicts the drive in question. I already have sought, and have already been provided with the steps that I need to undertake in order to "repair" the apparent capacity of the drive in question, and I am already making plans to replace my *&^%$#@ Gigabyte motherboard with something different with all due haste. I will *never* purchase another Gigabyte motherboard as long as I live! (In addition to this extraordinarily problem, it also has had a number of obscure problems booting various things from USB-attached mass storage.) Anyway, my thanks to all involved for their time and effort considering my unfortunate plight. Who knew that just connecting an otherwise flawless hard drive to a specific kind of motherboard would instantly render it effectively brain dead? Regards, rfg