From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 14 06:48:38 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E81216A4CE for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 06:48:38 +0000 (GMT) Received: from nightmare.dreamchaser.org (nightmare.dreamchaser.org [12.32.36.65]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7E0D43D53 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 06:48:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@dreamchaser.org) Received: from [12.32.36.74] (imagination.dreamchaser.org. [12.32.36.74]) i9E6mYog052772 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:48:34 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from freebsd@dreamchaser.org) Message-ID: <416E2142.8090909@dreamchaser.org> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:48:34 -0600 From: freebsd@dreamchaser.org User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 06:48:38 -0000 Hi all, Trying to install 5.3b7 on the second slice of a Seagate ST380013AS SATA 80G drive. Drive was originally partitioned from NT to have an 8G NTFS slice at the front, with the rest left open for FBSD. When I boot off a CD (image created from downloaded iso image), start the install, and go to allocate the freebsd slice, it reports 155061/16/63 ad4 and says the geometry is invalid If I go ahead and attempt to partition, I see Geometry ad4 9729 cylinders/255 heads/63 sectors = 156296385 sectors (76316MB) Offset Size(St) End Name PType Desc SubType Flags 0 63 62 -- 12 unused 0 63 16386237 16386299 ad4s1 4 NTFS/HPFS/QNX 7 16386300 139915188 156301487 -- 12 unused 0 F1 help suggests running tools/pfdisk, for which there appears to be no documentation, but which appears to be a very old tool applicable only to disks smaller than 8G and not using LBA. Questions: 1. Is the geometry (155061/16/63) really invalid? Given the 1024 cyl limitation, it doesn't look to me like the modified geometry (9729/255/63) assumed? by fdisk is any better, since both 155061 and 9729 are > 1024. In any case, the drive uses LBA, so why is this an issue and even being reported? 2. Do I really want to reset it? Is that even relevant when LBA is being used? 3. Is pfdisk and geometry even relevant for disks > 8G? Decided to abort the install until I had this straightened out, but I'm guessing I should just forge ahead and disregard the geometry complaints? Thanks for any insights, Gary