grub-0.97 reports Error 18 while 'Smart Boot Manager' can load WinXP past cyl 1023

[Martin MOKREJŠ]

Hi,
  I have upgraded my internal ATA drive and now the partitions are larger. I 
have:

(output from fdisk)

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2              14         136      987997+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3             137       13510   107426655   83  Linux
/dev/hda4           13511       19457    47769277+   7  HPFS/NTFS


(output from cfdisk)

Partition Table for /dev/hda

         ---Starting---      ----Ending----    Start     Number of
 # Flags Head Sect Cyl   ID  Head Sect Cyl     Sector    Sectors
-- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----------- -----------
 1  0x80    1    1    0 0x83  254   63   12          63      208782
 2  0x00    0    1   13 0x82  254   63  135      208845     1975995
 3  0x00    0    1  136 0x83  254   63 1023     2184840   214853310
 4  0x00  254   63 1023 0x07  254   63 1023   217038150    95538555



(output from sfdisk)

Disk /dev/hda: 19457 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Old situation:
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *      0+     12      13-    104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2         13     135     123     987997+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3        136   13509   13374  107426655   83  Linux
/dev/hda4      13510   19456    5947   47769277+   7  HPFS/NTFS


The config file for grub contains the following attempts while none of them 
works:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader  +1

title Windows2
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader  (hd0,3)+1

title Windows3
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader --edx=0x0080 (hd0,3)/ntldr


When I try any of the above 2 approaches, I get:

Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

I can't upgrade anymore, it is the latest. The best I have done was to setup in
BIOS "Manual" mode and set the CHS values as reported by Linux's fdisk. 
Originally,
the number of cylinders was only 1023 so the size of teh disk appeared to be 8G.
However, Linux kernel possibly fetched its own values from teh disk so I have 
managed
to partition as shown above.

1. Would setting the CHS directly in the grub config file help? How to do it?

2. I have used from "Ultimate Boot CD" the Smart Boot Manager 3.7.1 and it has 
displayed
all partitons on my disk. After picking up the one with NTFS and exiting the 
menu by escape
it boots the WinXP! I believe this demonstrates there is something rotten in 
grub.

3. Please note my first partition is ext3 filesystem, is bootable and as I I 
did understand
grub's documentation I should not suffer from the problem with large drives and 
grub should
be able to boot from any cylinder. So why do I get the Error 18? After googling 
around
I have found somewhere that the error message sometimes appears when the 
partiton table does
not match the values provided by BIOS. How can I be sure this is not my case? 
fdisk seems to
be a bit buggy and at least during my first attempts the fix the problem I saw 
the ending cylinder
of the 4th (ntfs) partition to be 1023 instead of 19456. The problem is I 
cannot find a tool
which would allow to set the ending cylinder (or to be sure it is really not 
1023). In BIOS
is 19456, really.

Thank for help
Please cc: me in replies.
Martin