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Subject: Re: IDE/eIDE issues
To: julian@ref.tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:48:12 +0100 (MET)
Cc: kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de, freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199511170111.RAA02655@ref.tfs.com> from "Julian Elischer" at Nov 16, 95 05:11:16 pm
From: Christoph Kukulies <kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
Reply-To: Christoph Kukulies <kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
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> 
> the simple way to get it to work::
> 
> install a dos partition on the drive
> (and nothing else)

Do you mean it is required to do so? What if I don't have DOS?
(I assume you mean creating a DOS partition with DOS's FDISK)

> 
> boot BSD
> change the dos part to BSD
> use it..
> 
> the secret is to make sure that you give the 
> geometry that the BIOS uses

That drive has 1244/16/63. FreeBSD sysinstall partition editor
suggested 933/32/42. I entered these figures into the CMOS
labeled and installed FreeBSD (2.1.0-xxx) and still was unable
to boot - as I said, it found the boot loader but stopped
right at beginning of loading the kernel.

Has the disklabel to be rewritten everytime the geometry is
changed? I think so. 

> 
> > 
> > For some installation tests I bought a brandnew Quantum Fireball640
> > (612 MB) thinking it would be least risky to use IDE/eIDE to install FreeBSD.
> > 
> > But it turns out to be the most cumbersome installation I was doing
> > ever :-(
> > 
> > I can't the hell get it to boot. After several tries with 
> > 'missing operating system' results I finally got it to find
> > the boot loader but when the kernel is being loaded
> > all I can get is the first | from the twisting |/-\'s then hang.
> > 
> > I tried with IDE, and two different eIDE (VLB) controller to no avail.
> > 
> > Do I need to put special disk software that came with the controller
> > to the disk first ? I always thought FreeBSD can cope with any disk
> > geometry/IDE drive size as long as the partition can be reached from
> > the BIOS.
> > 
> > Looking back I find that I did only do mostly SCSI installations
> > in the past and my (successful) IDE  installations date back into
> > times where common IDE drives used to have less than 1/2 GB.
> > 
> > I tried to read the handbook first before coming up here
> > but in fact the handbook is very sparse on (e)IDE.
> > 
> > 
> > --Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de
> > 
> 
> 

--Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de