From owner-freebsd-hackers  Wed May  3 11:34:55 1995
Return-Path: hackers-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id LAA09416
          for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 3 May 1995 11:34:55 -0700
Received: from duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu (!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*!#$%^&*@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu [18.43.0.236])
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id LAA09409
          ; Wed, 3 May 1995 11:34:51 -0700
Received: by duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id OAA15789; Wed, 3 May 1995 14:34:44 -0400
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 14:34:44 -0400
Message-Id: <199505031834.OAA15789@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
From: "Charles M. Hannum" <mycroft@ai.mit.edu>
To: phk@ref.tfs.com
CC: dyson@Root.COM, sos@FreeBSD.org, paul@isl.cf.ac.uk, terry@cs.weber.edu,
        hackers@FreeBSD.org
In-reply-to: <199505031750.KAA13325@ref.tfs.com> (message from Poul-Henning Kamp on Wed, 3 May 1995 10:50:12 -0700 (PDT))
Subject: Re: NetBSD supports LBA and large (EIDE) drives
Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk


   > The problems that Hale has noted are entirely on the software end --
   > that there is little or no standardization about how the BIOS converts
   > beetween C/H/S addresses and LBAs.  This is only an issue when sharing
   > a disk with another OS, or when booting from it, and is analagous to
   > the standard geometry translation compatibility problems.

   You know, FreeBSD can exist on the same disk as other OS's.

That's a non-sequitur.  NetBSD certainly coexists with other OSes,
even on disks using LBA mode.

   > LBA mode is not `needed' for IDE drives smaller than 8GB.  However:
   And nobody has been insane enough to make a 8GB+ IDE drive yet.

Precisely because software vendors are being extraordinarily lame
about it.  Someone has to take the initiative, and it's *much* cheaper
for the software vendors.

   > 1) In practice, the differences between BIOS LBA implementations seem
   > to be less annoying than the differences between BIOS C/H/S
   > implementations.
   Well, you're in for a surprise then...

I sincerely doubt that.  I've been following this for years.