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From: dejones@gandalf.ca (David E. Jones)
Subject: Installing NetBSD on WD1007 ESDI drive
Message-ID: <1993May28.011157.19632@gandalf.ca>
Summary: It doesn't work - can't read disklabel
Keywords: WD1003,ESDI,BSD
Organization: Gandalf Data Ltd.
Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 01:11:57 GMT
Lines: 29


I am having problems installing NetBSD on a 386 with an ESDI drive.

The ESDI drive is a Miniscribe, approx. 318 MB.  The only label on it says
"type 38".  The ESDI controller is a real WD1007.  It offers a translated
geometry of 617 cyls, 16 heads, 63 sectors.  It appears that the drive
is actually 1224 cyls, 15 heads, and somewhere around 32 sectors, untranslated.

I would like confirmation of these geometries.  Does anyone have enough
experience with Miniscribe drives to be able to identify the drive in
question?

In any case, we partitioned the drive and ran the NetBSD install procedure,
which copies the core Unix system to the hard disk, except for the kernel.
This step appears to proceed without error.  We are then to re-boot and
copy the kernel onto the hard disk.  If I try to do so, the kernel cannot
find the DiskLabel information.  Funny thing is, the disklabel command has
no problem, and the values it reports are the values we used when installing.

We think that there may be a problem with getting the disk geometry straight.
In addition, we are unsure as to how to configure the ESDI controller.
Does the WD1007 do _automatic_ sector translation?  This must probably
be a hardware function, since BSD does not use the BIOS routines.  Just how
are we to set up the bad-block remapping?  There is a command, "bad144"
which does not appear to be much help.

Any info from someone who has successfully installed NetBSD on a WD1007 ESDI
system would be appreciated.  Please email responses, as I don't read these
groups.