Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 01:47:41 -0500 (EST) From: Marc Ramirez <mrami@mramirez.sy.yale.edu> To: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: IDE geometry question... Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.91.950211191045.1038A-100000@mramirez.sy.yale.edu>
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I tried today to install FreeBSD 2.0R onto a friend's computer. It is a 730MB Conner IDE (it may be EIDE, but for the purposes of FreeBSD these are equivalent, yes?), and it uses the necessary 32h/64s per cylinder mapping in DOS. We defragged his disk, split his DOS partition with FIPS and proceeded to install FreeBSD. Well, the first thing FreeBSD kvetched about was the fact that the MBR said 32 heads, and it couldn't use 32 heads, so it was reverting back to 16 heads. Well, this clearly puts the geometries at odds, so I tried to change back the geometry with (F)disk. I did; the kernel complained again (of course). Fdisk then created a slice of the appropriate geometry (matching the DOS slice), and I went on to disklabel and newfs the slice. Soon thereafter, I started getting seek errors (I wrote down the exact text, but left it somewhere else; I can post it if necessary) involving head 16. More specifically, I got a message saying that the controller was not responding. So, his current geometry is 708c/32h/64s. Since he only wants 200MB for DOS and the rest for FreeBSD, I am thinking the best solution is to back up his stuff, change the geometry to 1416c/16h/64s (drive reported geometry), use the first 400 cylinders for DOS with its 1024 cylinder limit, and the rest for FreeBSD which has no such restriction. Is this the solution, or can I use the 32 head geometry somehow? Thanks, Marc. -- DeForrest Gump - "Dammit, Jim! Life is like a box of chocolates!"
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