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Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1995 17:25:27 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199507040725.RAA14172@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: babkin@hq.icb.chel.su, bde@zeta.org.au
Subject: Re: FBSD & old HDs
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
Sender: hackers-owner@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

>But MS-DOS worked absolutely OK on them and FBSD absolutely didn't worked
>with XEBEC drive. I think the first thing FBSD should try to read is

DOS FORMAT marks bad sectors and doesn't use them for the file system.
FreeBSD would mark bad sectors in a similar way if you ran badsect(8).
Both methods fail a file system metadata block is bad.  bad144 solves
this problem.

>MBR, and then if there is no FBSD slice it should not try to read anything
>else (at least for the install diskette). But it got problems at the first

FreeBSD slice'ness is determined by attempting to read the label.  You can
have a label and FreeBSD file systems on slices of any type.

>Yes, maybe. But the `subject' is slightly misleading, really in the 2nd case
>only computer was old, not the drive. IDE controllers are known to be simply
>buffer logic with absolutely no intelligence, so I think there should be no
>interference between old IDE controller and new drive.

`Old' means 1985 MFM to me :-).  When did IDE drives first come out?  I
didn't own one until late 1994.

Bruce