Help!!! Error 18 - Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

[ludmil]

Help!!! Error 18 - Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I am running Jaunty Jackalope on a new machine and after a recent update I got the following message when trying to reboot:

Error 18 - Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

After reading some of the info on Grub error 18 I decided to create a separate boot partition, as suggested. However, when trying to use Gparted from the live CD to create some space ahead of /sda1, Gparted would run for a while and then crash. The crash message says:

"e2fsck crashed with SIGSEGV in qsort"
So now I am stuck, unable to boot from HDD and unable to create new partitions (the other partitions on the disk work fine with Gparted). Could all of this be due to corrupt /sda1 partition?

Since I am pretty new at this I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!

Ludmil

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD, open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

[Rubberman]

This is often caused by incorrect disc settings in the bios (legacy ide for example) or an outdated bios. Check the bios settings in the first place, and if you don't find one to fix that, check with the system manufacturer for an updated bios.

[ludmil]

Thank you all for the quick replies. Here's what happens when I run fdisk:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu



Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x000adb2d



Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 * 63 799442594 399721266 83 Linux

/dev/sda2 953040060 976768064 11864002+ 5 Extended

/dev/sda5 953040123 976768064 11863971 82 Linux swap / Solaris

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount /dev/sda1

umount: /dev/sda1: not mounted

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -y /dev/sda1 /mnt

fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-200

e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-200

e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-200

fsck.ext2: Is a directory while trying to open /mnt



The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2

filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2

filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock

is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>



/dev/sda1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while reading block 59507202



/dev/sda1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read reading journal superblock



fsck.ext3: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while checking ext3 journal for /dev/sda1

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ nautilus mnt &

[1] 7827

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

I tried adjusting the BIOS settings but everything seems fine. I called System76 and asked about BIOS upgrade but they said that since this is a pretty new machine they would not recommend that.

I am wondering whether my failure to resize the partition with Gparted and error 18 are both because the partition is corrupted?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards

Ludmil