Hi,

Let's characterise this a little more...

> I've a few other slightly larger drives that in the range of
> 4100MB-4200MB in size.  If I build their fs under 1.5.2 and later boot
> into 1.6, the boot time fsck under 1.6 sees the filesystems as corrupt
> and wipes out the entire thing.  If I build them under 1.6 and boot to
> 1.5.2, the same thing happens.  If I build them on 1.6, and only boot on
> 1.6, they seem to mostly work, until they start filling up with data.

But do > 4 gig partitions work fine under 1.5.2 with any amount of data?
If the answer is yes, we can look at all of the fs code that's changed
between 1.5.2 and 1.6. I wish I noticed when the problem started
happening, but there were many months around the time before and after I
updated to 1.6 where the VAX just served web...

> I've seen manifestations of this on at least three different drives,
> each a different model, between two manufacturers (Quantum and Seagate),
> so I don't think it's a fluke.  There's something amuck in the fs code
> for >4GB partitions.

Yes. To eliminate drive problem possibilies, I swapped drives and tried
several different drives.

> I do think >4GB *drive* support is fine, it's just a problem with the
> filesystem sizes.

So let's find out where stuff broke, and find out what changed!

John Klos
Sixgirls Computing Labs