From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 20 07:51:47 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95BD61065673 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:51:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from unga888@yahoo.com) Received: from web57010.mail.re3.yahoo.com (web57010.mail.re3.yahoo.com [66.196.97.114]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 429DC8FC1A for ; Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:51:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from unga888@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 83528 invoked by uid 60001); 20 Jun 2008 07:51:46 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Reply-To:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Message-ID; b=xEQvEnsHLJJkyG1xWmxC9gNokdxmb2ACO7rcFsLd/3EqkxYnyyaqyj2D4W+SElidKirBk0lxVmaXpc4WfKukKDlLIcyRTKtOw77FmR/MNS8UqUhMfRP0sGb8bl1yaz3HF1ZRmJ+fAHnnM02Nb7HZmEvN3h6UJhlc1O1Gx7RbgGM=; Received: from [165.21.155.113] by web57010.mail.re3.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:51:46 PDT X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.199 Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:51:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Unga To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <632503.83320.qm@web57010.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Subject: FreeBSD fdisk how to? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: unga888@yahoo.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:51:47 -0000 Hi all I need to partition a new 250GB SATA disk. BIOS Auto calculated disk geometry shows: parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=119706 heads=16 sectors/track=255 (4080 blks/cyl) That is, Total sectors=488400480 Since the C/H/S values are not compatible with FreeBSD fdisk, I recalculated them as: Sectors/track: 63 Heads: 255 Cylinders = 488400480 / 16065 = 30401 I made a configfile as: g c30401 h255 s63 p 1 165 63 488392002 a 1 I ran fdisk as follows: fdisk -f configfile -itv /dev/ad2 I get following message: ******* Working on device /dev/ad2 ******* fdisk: invalid fdisk partition table found fdisk: WARNING line 1: number of cylinders (30401) may be out-of-range (must be within 1-1024 for normal BIOS operation, unless the entire disk is dedicated to FreeBSD) parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=119705 heads=16 sectors/track=255 (4080 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=30401 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Information from DOS bootblock is: 1: sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 488392002 (238472 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 704/ head 254/ sector 63 2: 3: 4: Now my questions: 1. Am I suppose to enter as c1024 instead of c30401, irrespective of the size of the disk? 2. Is it an error if I still enter as c30401? 3. Am I suppose to enter the c30401 h255 s63 values to the BIOS as user mode before run fdisk? In case the way I use fdisk under FreeBSD is not correct, appreciate if you guys can point to some documentation. I followed the fdisk(8). Many thanks in advance. Kind regards Unga