Assertion failed in v1.6.15

[Jim Carter]

[root harlech /tmp/root.jimc 8] parted /dev/hda
GNU Parted 1.6.15
Copyright (C) 1998 - 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Using /dev/hda
(parted) print                                                            
You found a bug in GNU Parted.  Please email a bug report to 
address@hidden containing the version (1.6.15), and the following 
message:

Assertion (heads < 256) at disk_dos.c:486 in function 
probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
Ignore/Cancel? ignore                                                     

(and the following messages were also seen, in order:)

Assertion (heads > 0) at disk_dos.c:485 in function 
probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
Assertion (sectors > 0) at disk_dos.c:489 in function 
probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
Assertion ((c * heads + h) * sectors + s == a) at disk_dos.c:494 in 
function probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
Assertion ((C * heads + H) * sectors + S == A) at disk_dos.c:495 in 
function probe_partition_for_geom() failed.

(then repeating from line 485.)

The same failure is seen on another machine with the identical hardware and 
partitioning (not ghosted, set up from scratch), making me think that the 
problem is not corruption in the partition table.  Both machines have been 
working without problems since they were installed around April 2006.  

The host distro is SuSE Linux v9.2 (kernel 2.6.8).  Yes, we are upgrading 
to SuSE v10.1 which has parted v1.6.25 (which is why I was using parted 
today, to save info about the partition table in case of a screwup).

James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90095-1555
Email: address@hidden    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)