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Date:      Tue, 22 Aug 1995 17:02:17 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Chris Coleman <chris@crow.ctc.edu>
To:        Mr_X <jbbrazel@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: 64-heads on Western IDE
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.950822165915.4616A-100000@crow.ctc.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199508222352.JAA09873@brian.teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au>

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I think part of you problem can be fixed in the bios settings, there is a 
translation setting that allows dos to read larger than 500meg drives 
this has to be set so that it doesn;t translate so that unix can read it 
right.  Which might mean that dos might have a fit later. i cant say.
 
Hope this helps :->

Chris Coleman      	Chris@crow.ctc.edu
Computer Support Intern, Big Bend Community College
http://134.39.180.3/hypertxt/yafda.htm
Lost in CyberSpace and Loving it.   

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995, Mr_X wrote:

> Last nite, I decided the time had come to finally get freebsd on my PC.
> Sunted dos all over the place, repartitioned/reformatted etc etc etc,
> and then booted off a floppy to be installing.
> 
> My basic setup is a Western IDE 1.2Gig HDD running on a brand X (I forget which)
> IDE controller (note, there is only the one drive hooked up to the controller).
> The CMOS defaults are set to:
> 	621 cyl, 64 heads, 63 sectors
> (BIOS is auto-sensing the drive)
> which basically leaves me with a 1.22 Gig HDD for use.
> 
> When I rebooted, FreeBSD began spewing about 64 heads being
> incompatible with the 'partition table', and that the 'controller default
> of 16' (heads) was being restored.
> From then on, lots of wonderful problems ensued.
> Install had trouble creating the rd0g disk partition (timing out), but after
> a bit of screwing around, (setting the CMOS settings to 2484c,16h,63s  -
> these were the settings that install seemed to want - it kept writing them
> to the screen) rd0g formatted correctly (this occurred around 3am in the morning).
> But then DOS had it's little spew (didn't like the new MBR, did it?
> And yup, unfortunately, I need to keep DOS for work) So I reset
> the CMOS, rebooted teh install disk, rewrote the MBR etc etc,
> and install decided it would play ball until I had to reboot FreeBSD from
> the harddisk (just before I used cpio.flp, I guess).
> It rebooted fine until it got to forking init, couldn't find it, paniced,
> died :P
> 
> So:
> 
> 	- Why is 64 heads such a bad number (just _what_ partition table is
> 	  the install disk referring to when it barfs)?
> 
> 	- Is this the reason for FreeBSD's stubborn refusal to install smoothly?
> 
> 	- Does anyone have any suggestions?
> 
> cheers,
> 	John Brazel
> +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
> jbbrazel@cs.adelaide.edu.au  	      "Yea, though I walk alone through
> eris@student.adelaide.edu.au	      the valley of darkness, I fear no
> I.R.L: John Brazel		      evil, for I am the evilest son of 
> Adelaide University, Aus.	      a bitch this valley has ever seen"
> 		HTTP://smug.student.adelaide.edu.au/~eris
> +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
> 



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