From owner-freebsd-current Mon Nov 25 10:31:49 1996 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA28472 for current-outgoing; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:31:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from alpo.whistle.com (alpo.whistle.com [207.76.204.38]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA28444 for ; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:31:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from current1.whistle.com (current1.whistle.com [207.76.205.22]) by alpo.whistle.com (8.8.2/8.8.2) with SMTP id KAA22491; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:28:21 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <3299E533.15FB7483@whistle.com> Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:28:03 -0800 From: Julian Elischer Organization: Whistle Communications X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: J Wunsch CC: FreeBSD-current users Subject: Re: 2.2-ALPHA install failure References: <199611250847.JAA16092@uriah.heep.sax.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk J Wunsch wrote: > > As Rodney W. Grimes wrote: > > > > If you run a third party fdisk program on the disk, then the disk isn't > > > dedicated. > > > ENOUGH ALREADY! When I implimented the dummy fdisk table in the boot loader, I did it simply to allow people who had loaded the previous style of bootblocks, and who had used IT's style of "dangerously dedicated" to be able to replace the old bootblocks with the new ones and still be able to boot. the end sect/cyl/head numbers are NEVER USED except by FreeBSD to try get sme hints about the geometry, and I tend to believe in setting them to the following would be best. Ehead = Bios #heads -1 ECYL = 2 (or maybe 1?) Esectors = Bios# sectors note that the slice SIZE does not come into this calculation at all.... this would ensure that we could derive the geometry from it.. but the NCR bios might not like it too much but then, who cares.. it'd still work I believe. this would require altering disklabel to fiddle these bits (which it presently does not do), of setting sysinstall to do it in a compatible manner. personally I NEVER EVER EVER use dedicated mode. I find it too useful to have the 'dead area' before the first partition, and hell it's only 32K usually! julian (who has been following this froma a machine he could not reply from all weekend) >