From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Dec 18 05:00:11 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id FAA24863 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 18 Dec 1995 05:00:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA24857 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 1995 05:00:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from msmith@localhost by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.9) id XAA07321; Mon, 18 Dec 1995 23:31:10 +1030 From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199512181301.XAA07321@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Boot problems (was Re: Western Digital boot failures ) To: shovey@buffnet.net (steve hovey) Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 23:31:10 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "steve hovey" at Dec 18, 95 07:46:48 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk steve hovey stands accused of saying: > > READ THE INSTALLATION NOTES! SET THE GEOMETRY IN THE INSTALLER TO MATCH > > WHAT YOUR BIOS THINKS THE DISK IS. DO NOT GUESS. DO NOT PASS GO. > > DO NOT COLLECT $200. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? > > Dont beat up the guy - you will continue to have to say this until there > is a utility for this sort of thing. There are several. > It is not clear to most people (yes, that is a general sweeping > statement) how one is supposed to divine the correct geometry. Because most people don't read the installation notes? > In many instances Ive left the primary drive an IDE for lack of being > able to get freebsd to not choke on scsi drives for which I was not > clarvoyant enough to produce a 'correct' geometry. > > Is there no way for a utility to ask the damn bios what it thinks it is, > thus making it able to tell the user if no other damn thing is possible? As suggested in the installation notes; run 'pfdisk' or 'fips' under DOS, and they will tell you. Boot with the '-v' flag, and the kernel will tell you. Run the diagnostic tools supplied with most host adapters, and they will tell you. The information is available; instructions on how to obtain it are available. If it was something obscure and difficult, I could understand the confusion, but it's not 8( -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 041-122-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] "Who does BSD?" "We do Chucky, we do." [[