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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