tlug: Sun disk label fdisk/SCSI question

[Tim Meggs <tim@example.com>]

Just went to install a new HD into my IPC box.    

When creating a new Sun disk label for the HD using fdisk [the 'auto detect'
option wouldn't detect it] the 'hardware detected' defaults suggested by fdisk 
in 'custom' mode don't correspond the the physical properties of the disk.

eg:   The disk is a Quantum Fireball TM1280S.  It only has 2 heads, but fdisk
      suggests that it has 40 when creating a Sun disk label.    

The only thing that I can guess is that since the HD has different number of
sectors/track at different locations of the disk [inner vs outer], fdisk 
'emulates' more heads and chooses a suitable number of sectors/track so as 
to be able to map onto the disks physical layout(format).

Is this the difference btwn a low-level and high-level format?

Does this mean that I can safely ignore the head, sectors/track info I got
from Quantum and just let fdisk do its thang with the 'hardware detected'
defaults?

tim-confused :/
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