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Date: Sun, 2 Jul 1995 15:33:37 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199507020533.PAA01236@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com, jcargill@cs.wisc.edu
Subject: Re: forwarded message from Ron Feigen
Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>I got the following email from someone running FreeBSD-2.0; can
>someone fill Ron and I in on how using an IDE disk in LBA mode
>interacts with mounting it under FreeBSD-2.0?
>...
>If there is a way I could keep my DOS/Win drive in LBA mode
>and still mount it with FreeBSD that would be great.  I
>would love to have LBA on the FreeBSD disk but I am sure that is
>not possible

Under FreeBSD-2.0, the BIOS geometry must have <= 16 heads.  This
is normally not the case if LBA mode is used so you can't use LBA
mode under FreeBSD-2.0.  Don't use FreeBSD-2.0.

Under FreeBSD-2.0.5., there is no restriction on the BIOS geometry.
FreeBSD-2.0.5 neither knows nor needs to know about LBA mode.  It
needs the drive to report a default geometry with <= 16 heads.  The
default geometry is the one printed in the boot messages.  At least
some drives that use LBA mode and > 16 heads under the BIOS report a
suitable default geometry with <= 16 heads so that they work under
FreeBSD.

Bruce