Re: Cannot find core.img on a 3Tb GPT usb disk

[lukshuntim]

On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:27 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Aug 12, 2013, at 9:02 AM, Chris Murphy <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 12, 2013, at 7:42 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> >
> > > Sector size (logical/physical): 4096B/4096B
> >
> > This could be a problem for any BIOS that doesn't explicitly support a 4KB 
> > physical sector.
>
> Physical sector isn't the problem, there are many such drives now but most are 
> 512e drives. They emulate a 512 byte logical sector. The problem with this 
> drive is it also has a 4096 byte logical sector. I don't think it will work as 
> a boot drive. Also this:
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2013-03/msg00022.html
>
>
> Chris Murphy

Hi Chris,

Thanks very much for your help. This is my first big disk and I'm still 
reading up to learn. It's a Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB usb 
external disk (model WDBACW0030HBK) and being used as a data backup for 
a while without any problem. I wanted to installed the OS so that it can 
also be used for recovery.

I made further investigation and "smartctl -a" shows this information:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Green (Adv. Format)
Device Model:     WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0
Serial Number:    WD-WMC1T2726470
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 6add848db
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  ACS-2 (revision not indicated)

So it seems to have the 512-logical sectors Advanced Format transition 
feature. Is it then possible to make BIOS recognise this disk to allow 
booting? Can gdisk be used to do the job? If yes, how?

My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L rev-1.0 with (Award) BIOS 
version F9, if that provides additional useful information.

Regards and thanks again,
ST
--