From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 22 14:33:49 2013 Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [8.8.178.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FFC0261 for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:33:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mla_strick@att.net) Received: from nm30-vm0.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com (nm30-vm0.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com [66.94.237.86]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1657AFBC for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:33:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [66.94.237.192] by nm30.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Mar 2013 14:33:39 -0000 Received: from [68.142.198.106] by tm3.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Mar 2013 14:33:39 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by smtp108.sbc.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Mar 2013 14:33:39 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=att.net; s=s1024; t=1363962819; bh=WQlFX5uyqdRLoXQUhPsZ5XcCNBy+9X6LZt8E+ecNGo0=; h=X-Yahoo-Newman-Id:X-Rocket-Received:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-SMTP:From:Received:To:Subject:Cc:Message-Id:Date; b=ULCw52ffa3sC4kF4fnzYV+tzkB5fUJ9zpUGuthZSGHyrVNy5PJ57z/ZqNzmPy65WMpkRCJUwiEuaHOKwIP9CyFVz5BuJgCiCnxBa6+9fMBBkIrttJP/rNNtC6oU2p8RbfSGRz3uR2A0GjAg3Yeonh6tJ5Vx5ouCVRFtaYD323GQ= X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 42668.818.bm@smtp108.sbc.mail.mud.yahoo.com X-Rocket-Received: from mist.localdomain (mla_strick@69.228.93.144 with login) by smtp108.sbc.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Mar 2013 07:33:38 -0700 PDT X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-YMail-OSG: 3jQxztIVM1nArzM1nqKnManhrwX6qoDA7OBeLTl5POTtPG0 2mraCJu.PSExbNzYZG1oTHT_8gTdEdhZEx_skaRUaKgEX1vws_Z0JMCgxUs6 0HR.seAP1t.vseySsNrDi1F62Tlyo7Ar0eAdVbqYGzuRUBCEXUFj9wExp5Mu 5Jv.2lDGEbxZVCd5BrwvjlicM5S0zeABJfgWgKPSqDMK2JpV3PH0y9BmqKA3 h6lwrzCa72PZOU7nr_TqYOFiBTl3WXWixKMcf2GPTlRQB0TX6.EJ0yZlsdt0 K0x16B0GDFd.NiuXf0WFEZprXItotXuIYyDkhu9cI7OHA_UM0mLYTn0UIFTf qinqxGHUgAYabrZphJxxTHdl4z1hb4pURgEzl8TuimIB_KpXgc.t9kv7rSZ4 bwN01T8jDpn_LyUBoZ_XReh5qEpfgc2dHsNKvrwS8mHABMZKblrAQUrf06M8 uqnG20r2ko1m364VEBZhAr1ENbR1m X-Yahoo-SMTP: ppEzeiKswBBq7wHVNDEiPbPsAwzyGELyRI8IdiDYGqsxaD5uQA-- From: mla_strick@att.net Received: by mist.localdomain (Postfix, from userid 5263) id 36D368634; Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:33:38 -0700 (PDT) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Is fdisk broken? Message-Id: <20130322143338.36D368634@mist.localdomain> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:33:38 -0700 (PDT) Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/options/freebsd-questions>, <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions> List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe> X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:33:49 -0000 I recently bought a 4 TB usb disk drive and discovered that it reported a sector size of 4096 bytes instead of the traditional 512 bytes. This is apparently necessary because there may be a 32 bit sector number field somewhere in the usb mass storage protocols. It turns out that disk drive manufacturers have been producing disks with large sector sizes for some years now. The feature goes by the name "Advanced Format" and other things. Look it up in Wikipedia. FreeBSD seems to use the sector size information when interpreting MBR partition offsets and sizes. Unfortunately, when I try to use fdisk to print out the partition table on my new disk drive, fdisk just says "fdisk: could not detect sector size". Otherwise the MBR partition table seems to work correctly and newfs seems to have done the right thing. (It made the file system fragment size a multiple of the sector size and I am not getting any weird error messages out of the disk driver.) It would be nice if fdisk also worked. I do have to share the disk with other operating systems that might not understand other partition table schemes. Is may analysis of what is going on essentially correct? Can fdisk be made happy again? (At least for a few more years?) Dan Strick (mla_strick@att.net)