*BSD News Article 26118


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From: a09878@giant.rsoft.bc.ca (Curt Sampson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Installing NetBSD 0.9 after MS-DOS
Date: 17 Jan 94 07:20:11 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! Communications Corp
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <a09878.758791211@giant>
NNTP-Posting-Host: giant.rsoft.bc.ca

I'm trying to install NetBSD on a system that already has a small DOS
partition. I want DOS to boot by default; I'll boot NetBSD by loading
the bootstrap programs from floppy disk and then loading the kernel
from the hard drive.  Unfortunately, I'm not having much success.

My procedure is this: install a 25 MB DOS 6.0 partition on my 100 MB
disk. Then use the Linux fdisk program to set up a partition on the
remainder of the disk and set the type to 0xa5 (as described in the
NetBSD install document). Then boot NetBSD, give it the disk size,
calculate the size of the NetBSD partition, give it that number as
the partition size, and calculate the size of the DOS partition and
give it that number as the offset into the disk.

Then the install script does the disklabel, which asks me if I want to
overwrite a disk with DOS partition information on it. Here things
seem to get a bit wierd.

If I'm using my disk in untranslated mode (1282 cylinders, 4 heads, 40
sectors) and I say 'no', it seems to write the disklabel just fine and
I set things up normally. DOS still boots fine, but I can't use the
bootblocks from a floppy to boot the kernel on my hard drive because
the boot program claims the disk label is bad. (I can still mount the
disk and fsck it if I boot the kernel from a floppy, though.)

If I'm using my disk in translated mode (1024 cylinders, 5 heads, 40
sectors) and I say 'no', the label never gets written and I can't
continue.

If I say 'yes' in either mode, my partition table gets trashed and I
loose the DOS partition.

Has anyone any advice?

cjs
--
Curt Sampson  a09878@giant.rsoft.bc.ca  
Fluor Daniel		  604 691 5458	
1444 Alberni Street			
Vanouver, B.C., V6G 2Z4			"Do not expect fairings."