Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:23:14 +0000 From: Neil Brendan Clark <nbc@vulture.dmem.strath.ac.uk> To: Christoph Kukulies <kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: IDE/eIDE issues Message-ID: <199511171023.KAA03818@vulture.dmem.strath.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:48:12 %2B0100." <199511170748.IAA26324@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
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The Failsafe Guide to IDE drives (with FreeBSD ;)
-------------------------------------------------
Caveat (1) If in doubt about disk geometry, read the sticky label on the disk.
It tends to be more accurate than whatever the BIOS reports ;-)
Caveat(2) *Always* assume this number to be correct - even if at some point
FreeBSD reports the BIOS parameters.
Caveat(3) I realise that some people have had success with creating small
DOS partitions and all that, but it didn't work for me :(
Caveat(4) This information has been gathered through weeks of painful efforts
with IDE disks, culminating in an "all nighter" when I actually got my 1Gig
IDE to work. Any inaccuracies are wholly due to post-dated lack of sleep and
nutrition.
Step(1) Switch of the BIOS translation, returning it to "standard" mode.
Step(2) If you want a DOS partition, it will now need to reside (in real
geometry terms) totally within the first 1024 cylinders of the disk.
Step(3) Boot the computer with the FreeBSD boot disk, and start partitioning
the disk.
Step(4) Make a root partition - not a "fake" partition within a partition,
but dedicate a whole, i.e. one of the four available on the entire
disk, to becoming your FreeBSD "root". 25 Megabytes should do it. This
partition *must must must* be *totally* within the first *real*
1024 cylinders of the IDE disk in order that it be accessable to the
BIOS at boot time.
Step(5) Make your main partition, which will be a distinct partition from the
one created in step(4). In other words, there are only two partitions
on the disk left - room for, say, DOS and something else. This partition
can be anywhere at all on the disk, since the BIOS will not be used
to read it in any way (that I am aware of).
Step(6) Label the two partitions. The partition in step(4) becomes "/", while
the partition created in step(5) becomes your /usr and swap or whatever. If you are doing this using the standard system installer (of course
you are! ;-) it will create an appropriate fstab which will automount
all this gubbins.
Step(7) Do the rest of the installation, and reboot, after which you should
have a working system. On no account ever change the BIOS back to
"kludge translation" mode or your system won't boot. You'll have
to change it back to get it working again.
Neil
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