From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Aug 4 9: 2:49 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from citadel.cdsec.com (citadel.cdsec.com [192.96.22.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5656A15181 for ; Wed, 4 Aug 1999 09:02:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from gram@cequrux.com) Received: (from nobody@localhost) by citadel.cdsec.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA15799; Wed, 4 Aug 1999 18:01:38 +0200 (SAST) Received: by citadel via recvmail id 15733; Wed Aug 4 18:00:45 1999 Message-ID: <37A863E4.CAAD78D@cdsec.com> Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 18:01:40 +0200 From: Graham Wheeler Organization: Cequrux Technologies X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.08 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.8-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Nordier Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD References: <199908041500.RAA08771@cdsec.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Robert Nordier wrote: > > Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is > not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and > FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions > are defined. > > Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD > partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably > you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, > after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. > > The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v > (but it should be from the old "boot:" prompt, not from loader(8) > in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for "BIOS Geometries" > information. Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? -- Dr Graham Wheeler E-mail: gram@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax: +27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security Specialists WWW: http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message