I run into an interesting error attempting to install a second version of openSUSE on a large hard drive. The error is:
Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
My HD setup:
hal1000:/home/oldcpu # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00094fab
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 12748 102398278+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 12749 16572 30716280 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 16573 16827 2048287+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 16828 182401 1329973155 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 16828 176027 1278773968+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 176028 177939 15358108+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 177940 182401 35840983+ 83 Linux
hal1000:/home/oldcpu # df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 ext3 29G 6.2G 22G 23% /
udev tmpfs 3.0G 192K 3.0G 1% /dev
/dev/sda5 ext3 1.2T 278G 863G 25% /home
/dev/sda1 fuseblk 98G 30G 69G 30% /windows/C
sda2 ( / ) and sda5 (/home) are my openSUSE-11.1 and it works fine.
I tried to install openSUSE-11.2 milestone4 on sda6 (/ ) and sda7 (/home). Grub gave me this error, no matter where I tried to locate grub. I tried boot from extended, boot from MBR, boot from root, I tried it with and with out writing generic code to MBR, and with and with out setting active in partition table for boot partition. Knowing 11.2 has a bug where it falsely reports an error did not help remove the “fog” 
In most cases I ignored the grub error, and tried to boot (which did not work).
I finally tried the “boot from MBR” last, after which as expected my PC would not even boot 11.1, so I had to use the 11.1 installation DVD to do a “repair installed system”, repair my MBR and then once repaired put back my original menu.lst (as the menu.lst from the “repair installed system” is rather primitive" ) . This repair stuff is no dramas, as this is relatively easy, but all these failed grub efforts are rather time consuming (and a bit hard on the ego). So my PC boots 11.1 no problem. But I can’t boot the installed (and partially setup) 11.2.
I then tried a hand edit to the menu.lst to see if could manually force a boot on sda6 (which has 11.2 mostly installed) as such:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Thu Jul 23 19:58:42 CEST 2009
default 0
timeout 15
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.25-0.1
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.25-0.1-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31500341AS_9VS14DG6-part2 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31500341AS_9VS14DG6-part3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x346
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.25-0.1-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.25-0.1
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.25-0.1-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31500341AS_9VS14DG6-part2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x346
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.25-0.1-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.2 milestone4
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31500341AS_9VS14DG6-part5 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST31500341AS_9VS14DG6-part5 splash=silent showopts vga=0x346
initrd /boot/initrd
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
The entry with “title openSUSE 11.2 milestone4” is a hand hack/edit.
But again, when I selected the “milestone4” option (hack) in grub I get the Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
(note the other grub options work fine).
I’m wondering is this because sda6 is about 1.3 terrabytes after the MBR ? or am I over looking something silly. I don’t want to move around partitions if this just me being silly and overlooking something. I also don’t want to write bug reports 'cause of something silly I have done.
).