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Date:      Tue, 24 Jan 95 11:04:15 MST
From:      terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
To:        phk@ref.tfs.com (Poul-Henning Kamp)
Cc:        bde@zeta.org.au, freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com, kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de
Subject:   Re: disklabel (1.1.5.1), partitions
Message-ID:  <9501241804.AA12647@cs.weber.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199501241750.JAA21155@ref.tfs.com> from "Poul-Henning Kamp" at Jan 24, 95 09:50:37 am

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> > Not all SCSI devices are thus translated?
> mostly they are, unless the "> 1GB" option is set.

Sorry, this isn't really a valid reason for lying about the geometry
unless you can guarantee Adaptec ROMs for the house... my WD7000-FAAST
controller (the works with 386BSD PL2 but not after -- I'll have to do
something about that eventually) doesn't have this capability.  I point
at it not as a piece of obscure hardware (though it is that) but as an
example of something that doesn't work that way that I can back up with
ROM dumps.  If you'll accept a more general statement, I'll say that the
translation you suggest is primarily an Adaptec thing, and primarily for
newer controllers from them, at that.

> > Hold on! How about because the kernel should know the real BIOS apparent
> > geometry for instead of making things up like that?
> true, except we cannot trust this one anymore :-(  Some IDE and SCSI
> drivers get their "geometry" in CONFIG.SYS these days.

Actually, most EIDE controllers get them from a modified system boot block
installed by the OEM for the machine.  Blowing the system boot block in
that case really screws you up.

I have a copy of the article describing this somewhere...

> > No, no, wait!  I have a better one... because you could just add
> > descriptive text to inform the user of the physical vs. the translated
> > geometry?
> no.

I don't understand... what's wrong with:

	Geometry CCCC/HH/SS (Physical CCCC/HH/SS)

Instead of the unmarked numbers that it puts out now?

> Has nothing to do with it.  If you pass some of the weird geometries to
> newfs it will become very confused...  32/64 works sensibly most of the
> time.

This is a bug in newfs, like the one where it doesn't create a lost+found,
not a reason to bogify other parts of the system to hack around it.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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