From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 15 18:40:32 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 9E63D16A4CE for ; Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:40:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from simmts5-srv.bellnexxia.net (simmts5.bellnexxia.net [206.47.199.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E6D943D45 for ; Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:40:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mgjscdhl@nb.sympatico.ca) Received: from [192.168.1.103] ([156.34.160.129]) by simmts5-srv.bellnexxia.netESMTP <20040715183940.ELDD3387.simmts5-srv.bellnexxia.net@[192.168.1.103]>; Thu, 15 Jul 2004 14:39:40 -0400 Message-ID: <40F6CF95.9040404@nb.sympatico.ca> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 15:40:21 -0300 From: Geoffrey Lane User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freeballer@gmail.com, mgjscdhl@nb.sympatico.ca References: <20040712231338.5A64F16A4CE@hub.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20040712231338.5A64F16A4CE@hub.freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Newbie: Drive geometry in freebsd 4.10 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, 15 Jul 2004 18:40:32 -0000 I'm trying to tri-boot windows, gentoo and freebsd 4.10 cause I don't have an extra HD but had an extra slice to install. the hd is a maxtor 40gb IDE, model# 4d040h2, labeled on it says: cyl 16383 / head 16 / sectors 63 / LBA 80043264 when I throw the first install cd in it says the drive geometry is (4982/16/63 80035830). I booted into gentoo and used "hdparm -g /dev/hda" which gave me 65535/16/63 = 80043264 and to be quite honest I've looked but cannot find out where to locate the BIOSs geometry but partition magic SEEMS to indicated physcial geometry of 4982/255/63. I tried to find information in the handbook about it but couldn't and a google for this is overwelming for a newbie and nothing specifically I can see about my drive geometry... /dev/ad0s1 --> WinXP /dev/ad0s2 --> Gentoo2004.1 /dev/ad0s3 --> ** FREEBSD ** /dev/ad0s4 --> EXTENDED /dev/ad0s5 --> FAT32 partition for downloading to on all OSs /dev/ad0s6 --> Linux SWAP I'm not sure which drive geometry I should be using, I've heard of issues installing freebsd causes problems with the geometry and using other os/utils (ghost/partition magic) afterwards. I do not want to lose anything on the drive! If I need the BIOSs geometry, I would appreciate a suggestion of a tool to find this out or can I trust the hdparm/partitionmagic? I would appreciate the help, Geoff