Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 20:52:49 -0000 From: "Frank Mitchell" <mitchell@cloudynwuk.force9.co.uk> To: <matteo@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-qa@freebsd.org Subject: bin_48341 MBR Problems Message-ID: <000001c64625$59101bc0$2dd4ae51@hal>
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Dear Matteo Riondato, I had a similar problem to Heiner's, installing FreeBSD on a Windows machine. But I noticed there was a problem with CHS Translation Geometry, which may have been the cause. I had Windows Me installed in Primary and Extended Partitions set up using Windows FDISK. The Hard Drive is a Seagate Medalist 2122 (ST32122A) which physically has 2 platters and 4 heads. FreeBSD fdisk accepts the Default Logical Geometry supplied by the ATA Identify Drive Command. That means 4092 Logical Cylinders + 16 Logical Heads. Seagate documentation says this is acceptable to Non-DOS Operating Systems. But Seagate says DOS is likely to prefer 1023 Logical Cylinders + 64 Logical Heads. This configuration is displayed by the Slackware fdisk, presumably because Slackware wants compatibility with Logical Drives in an Extended Windows Partition. After installing FreeBSD I got an unbootable Hard Drive, which couldn't be fixed using "SYS C:" on the Windows Rescue Floppy. Then Windows FDISK reported the Hard Drive was only 504 Meg instead of the usual 2014 Meg. Clearly an unwanted factor of 4 was involved. I'm new to FreeBSD so I may be on the wrong track here. But I'm going to read up CHS Translation Geometry and try again after my next Backup. Frank Mitchellhome | help
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