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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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