Error 18

[Alexey Toptygin]

Hi,

I have an older IDE drive, a Seagate ST51080A. It responds to probes as 
CHS=2100/16/63 (both according to BIOS autodetection and to the linux 
kernel's /proc/ide/hda/gemoetry 'physical' line), but the drive sticker 
has 2096/16/63 written on it. badblocks -w reports that all 2100 cylinders 
are OK. I've tried booting from it with grub 0.97-12 from Debian install 
media on 2 different pentium systems, but I get Error 18 in all cases. 
I've tried forcing the BIOS geometry to 2100/16/63 and giving a 'geometry 
hd0 2100 16 63' to grub, and likewise with 2096/16/63 and 'geometry hd0 
2096 16 63', but the result is the same. This is the only drive, and 
device.map correctly has (hd0) /dev/hda.

What's going on? How can I troubleshoot further? Please Cc: me, I'm not on 
the list.

                        Thanks
                        Alexey