From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jun 18 14:16:20 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA27457 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 14:16:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from inter8.interactive8.com (inter8.interactive8.com [206.98.216.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA27450 for ; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 14:16:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from nobody@localhost) by inter8.interactive8.com (8.7.5/8.7.5) id RAA04182; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:16:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:16:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199606182116.RAA04182@inter8.interactive8.com> From: townsend@INTER8.interactive8.com To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: problems w/ ahc + Micropolis 1991 9 gig X-Sender: inter8.interactive8.com Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk This is a followup to my own question for the benefit of any Micropolis owners out there. Apologies to the list for noise. >Hi - > >I'm having some problems getting a Micropolis 1991 drive >working w/ the ahc driver w/ an adaptec 2840 vlb >controller. I can (apparently) label the drive but I >get numerous medium errors followed by a bus timeout when >I try to newfs the drive. I suspect that I have bogus disktab >information. This problem was solved by: 1. low level formatting the drive (I had done this originally, to no avail, not sure what't happening there) 2. running the adaptec controller's "Verify Disk Media" to the end (also done at the original install, but I suspect my numerous flailings w/ disklabel corrupted something) 3. Disconnecting the two internal IDE drives, leaving only the SCSI drive in question, booting w. an install disk, proceeding as w/ a new install, but setting the disk geometry to: 1 cylinder 1 head 1 sector This got the install process through the disklabel and newfs steps w/ no problem, and I then aborted the installation, reconnected the IDE drives, and mounted the new partition at /var/spool/news, and my news server was back... I found this *terribly* frustrating and the documentation abominable -- (btw, where the hell is format(8) anyway and why do I have a man page for it?) -- I would like very much to assist w/ installation documentation to help others avoid the trouble I had. I would also greatly appreciate any insight anybody may have as to why the 1/1/1 bogus geometry worked. I suspect it has to do w/ the drive's variable geometry (as on most new large SCSI's...) and FreeBSD trying to impose its somewhat outdated fixed-geometry on a drive that can take care of itself...but that's mere speculation on my part. Thanks, Chris townsend@interactive8.com