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Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:11:33 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199601031111.WAA02552@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: bde@zeta.org.au, phk@critter.tfs.com
Subject: Re: X for install
Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@time.cdrom.com, obrien@cs.ucdavis.edu
Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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>> Erm, the BIOS geometry problem is entirely in software, and "probing" of
>> the BIOS geometry has already been implemented by someone named phk :-).
>> (The problem is that association of BIOS disk numbers with FreeBSD
>> disk names isn't really implemented.)

>And cannot be done reliably, unless you can actually read a couple
>of sectors using the bios :-)

If you disabled the drive then both probing the drive and reading it
will fail.  It isn't fair to ask FreeBSD to determine the BIOS geometry
in that case.  The geometry might depend on how the drive is enabled
(with or without boot manager...).

Bruce