I thought I had posted My results. My problem wasn't the drive it was that I was replacing a drive. I made the wild assuption that I could just replace a drive and keep the old mount points. Mythtv didn't like this at all. It told me that there was only 14 gigs of space on my 800 Gb drive!! Made a new mount point "myth1" and mythtv is happy and my wife and duaghter are happy cuase they can now save a bunch of episodes of "Word World"

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My System

New egg has the WD20EARS 2TB for $80.99 US shipped and I paid $95 and thought I got a good deal

$89.99 with free shipping - Promo Codes EMCZZYR25 -10% (you may have to be subscribed to there email list for this to work.)

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TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

On the ArchLinuxCD util-linux-ng 2.17.2 Why isn't the -b option used

-B <size> sector size (512, 1024, 2048 or 4096)

fdisk -b4096 -c -u /dev/sda

If I create a default 5GB, 1GB swap, 500GB, I end up with this.

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 30400 cylinders, total 488378646 sectors
units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xae65c554

Device Boot .......Start........... End................Blocks............ID..........System
/dev/sda1 * .........256.........1311231........... 5242880......83...........Linux
/dev/sda2.....1310976.........1573119............1048576......82.........Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3.....1573120.........132645119....524288000......83.........Linux

After you write and exit it reverts back to 512 sectors

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xae65c554

Device Boot .......Start........... End................Blocks............ID..........System
/dev/sda1 * .........256.........1310975........... 5242880......83...........Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2.....1310976.........1573119............1048576......82.........Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3.....1573120.........132645119....524288000......83.........Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.





My stab at trying to lay out multiple partitions by adding +8 sectors

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 30400 cylinders, total 488378646 sectors
units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xae65c554

Device Boot .......Start........... End................Blocks............ID..........System
/dev/sda1 * .........256.........1311231........... 5243904......83...........Linux
/dev/sda2.....1311240.........1573383............1048576......82.........Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3.....1573392.........132645391....524288000......83.........Linux


Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xae65c554

Device Boot .......Start........... End................Blocks............ID..........System
/dev/sda1 * .........256.........1311231........... 655488......83...........Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2.....1311240........1573383............131072......82.........Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3.....1573392.........132645391....65536000......83.........Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.

in some instance the sector numbers that you enter are not the ones you will end up with. The program will change them but the program generated numbers are still not at the end of the cylinder boundary.
So how do you find the end of the cylinder boundary?

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TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

What partition table file system are you using for these drives?
MSDos or GPT

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TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

So far what I have found out is that unless you have Bios that has been authored in the last 12 months you will not be able to boot off a advanced format drive.

I did open a bug report on booting off a advanced format drive.
http://linhes.org/bugs/issues/736

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TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

Hmmm... I have a GPT formatted WDEARS20 on a board with a BIOS date of 13-Aug-2009 (IONITX A-U) that boots off the drive just fine.

Download an Arch CD and install base to your WDEARS20 to test if you can boot off it. Are you MBR or GPT?

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

Be careful when putting the hdparm command into rc.local. The method shown on the ArchLinux wiki page will wipe out your rc.local which could be bad if it had any other commands in it. The correct command should be:

# echo "hdparm -S 242 /dev/sdX" >> /etc/rc.local

Notice the use of two > (greater than) signs. This will append the command to the file rather than replace the file contents.

Gus

The hdparm method does not work on these drives. See here.

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Intel DG965WH, Dvico DVB-T Lite x2, HDHR, Gigabyte GT220, KingstonSSD, WD20EARS version=latest