*BSD News Article 26846


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From: ack@clark.net (Eric S. Hvozda)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Subject: Re: fdisk
Date: 2 Feb 1994 20:20:04 -0500
Organization: Clark Internet Services, Inc.
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In article <0hI0M_u00WB7EC5GkR@andrew.cmu.edu>,
Timothy J Kniveton  <tim+@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>are there any plans for FreeBSD to support a linux-style fdisk, which
>*correctly* recognizes the disks' geometry?  after hours of failed
>attempts to install FreeBSD with a DOS partition, i gave up and just
>installed FreeBSD (which works fine now).  later, i found out that it
>was because the FreeBSD boot disks were giving incorrect geometry for
>the disk.

Huh?

Well I run NetBSD, but I'd be willing to bet FreeBSD works the same...

The geometery reported by the kernel during auto-configure, is the native
geometery.  It's read from the mfg's label.  Things like 4drvutil.exe also
do this.  Do you have the geometery translated in BIOS?  Did you use pfdisk
to create the *BSD partition?  

If the geometery is wrong in BIOS, pfdisk will not help you since it reports
the BIOS's geometery, translated or not...

BTW, linux's pfdisk (at least the one from my old SLS 1.03 distribution)
reports BIOS geometery, not the native geometery.  *BSD doesn't like
translated geometeries in general.
-- 
Ack!
Creek, not creek; Pop not soda; Car needs washed...