Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 07:40:05 -0800 From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@freefall.freebsd.org> To: freebsd-bugs Subject: Re: misc/848: Inst gripes about geometry but won't accept true values FDIV040 Message-ID: <199511291540.HAA24550@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR misc/848; it has been noted by GNATS. From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@freefall.freebsd.org> To: uhclem%nemesis@fw.ast.com Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: Re: misc/848: Inst gripes about geometry but won't accept true values FDIV040 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 07:34:00 -0800 >2.1.0-RELEASE (or STABLE?) >System consists of a 540Meg IDE and 2.0GB SCSI. Boots from IDE. >SCSI Adapter is a Adaptec 1540B, latest firmware and microcode. >BIOS boots from the IDE and has no CMOS settings for the SCSI devices. > >>Description: > >During the installation, the SCSI drive was partitioned. >The partition software complains that the geometry is not correct >and that it should be corrected or terrible things will happen. > >Using the "G" command, the correct values are entered, ie 2707 cylinders, >19 heads, 81 sectors (per manufacturers data sheet for a Seagate ST12550N). This is not the geometry you should be entering. For any Adaptec controller in standard translation mode (<= 1 gig drive or "support DOS drives greater than 1 gig" disabled), the geometry exported by the card is 64heads, 32sec/track, #MB reported by the probe for the drive cylinders. The capacity of the drive, your controller, and your controller settings determine the correct geometry, not the real geometry of the drive. >After the data is entered, the partition software again says that the >geometry is not correct and the same values that were there before >reappear (2039/64/32), along with messages warning of woe and disaster >somewhere down the road should you not use the "G"eometry command to set >the correct values. Trying again gets you the same result and the data >you enter is discarded. I don't rememeber the order for values in that dialog, but I thought that the number of heads came first. If you use the huristic I mention above, you should get the correct geometry. >>Fix: > >Choose: > 1. Fix the partition software (also disklabel utility) to accept > the real values for that drive. You didn't supply the correct geometry. If it had accepted your values, you wouldn't be able to boot off of that drive. >or 2. Change the warnings to say the system is substituting these values > and they are close and might give you a bit more space or might > give you less, and everything will be fine, rather than implying > that something bad will happen if you can't cram the real settings > into the software (which apparently you can't). It would > also be nice if the system explained what magical hat these various > numbers (64 & 32) were being pulled from as well. > If input to the "G" command can't be accepted even when it is valid, > you might as well pull the command. I have no idea where 2.1 gets its numbers from, but the real solution is to beef up our boot sequence so we can properly save the BIOS values for all drives and use a "drive marking scheme" compatible with NT so that we can do an acurate mapping of geometry to device. >or 3. Both 1 and 2. > >This step in the installation could really throw a lot of people trying >to install for the first time, and it only seems to do this to people with >SCSI drives, which are supposed to be the drives of choice for FreeBSD. >We need to make this more friendly in a big way. Agreed. Its been a long standing problem. -- Justin T. Gibbs =========================================== FreeBSD: Turning PCs into workstations ===========================================
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