*BSD News Article 32277


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From: wpaul@panix.com (Bill Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 1.1.5 Install Bug (can't install to 2nd IDE disk)
Date: 30 Jun 1994 21:26:12 -0400
Organization: The M00se Illuminati (bl00p!)
Lines: 91
Message-ID: <2uvrbk$hq9@panix3.panix.com>
References: <2uv85d$62u@panix3.panix.com> <flipk.773016204@du139-212.cc.iastate.edu>
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Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se,
Phil Knaack (flipk@iastate.edu) had the courage to say:

: In <2uv85d$62u@panix3.panix.com> wpaul@panix.com (Bill Paul) writes:

: [ stuff deleted ]
: >You can have more than 2 IDE drives in one computer, you know.
: [ more ]

: Just out of idle curiosity, not really having much to do with BSD,
: how? A second IDE controller card at different I/O addresses/IRQ's?

Yep. I used a cheapo $20US serial/parallel/IDE I/O board. The trick is to
fine one that lets you selelect the secondary controller I/O address
(0x170-0x177) and secondary controller IRQ (15). It's generally not hard
to find one that lets you jumper-select the seocndary address, but finding
one that actually lets you select the secondary IRQ might be tricky. My
board didn't let me change it, and I had to attack it with a soldering
iron in the end. (This is not that big an operation either: you have to
change one connection -- takes about 5 minutes, usually.) The at2disk
patch for Linux that allows the use of a second IDE controller contains
documentation that explains exactly what changes need to be done. Now,
I know Boca makes controllers that can be configured as primary or secondary
and there are probably many others. Ask your local computer store salesman
if they have any that allow this. If they don't know what you're talking
about, ask to see the instruction sheet(s) for the controller and check
that it does what you want.

: I'd like to do it if I could under NetBSD, and if it's only a matter of I/O
: addresses, IRQ's and stuff, no biggie; just build a kernel with those specs.

Well, the config file for the GENERIC FreeBSD kernels contains the following
lines:

controller      wdc0    at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
disk            wd0     at wdc0 drive 0
disk            wd1     at wdc0 drive 1

controller      wdc1    at isa? port "IO_WD2" bio irq 15 vector wdintr
disk            wd2     at wdc1 drive 0
disk            wd3     at wdc1 drive 1

Assuming you have a properly configured controller, this will allow you
to access up to 4 IDE drives. I assume NetBSD has similar configuration
options. I happen to only have 3 drives myself:

wdc0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14 on isa
wdc0: unit 0 (wd0): <ST351A/X>
wd0: 40MB (83300 total sec), 980 cyl, 5 head, 17 sec, bytes/sec 512
wdc0: unit 1 (wd1): <Maxtor 7345 AT>
wd1: 329MB (675450 total sec), 790 cyl, 15 head, 57 sec, bytes/sec 512
wdc1 at 0x170-0x177 irq 15 on isa
wdc1: unit 0 (wd2): <ST351A/X>
wd2: 40MB (83300 total sec), 980 cyl, 5 head, 17 sec, bytes/sec 512

I use wd2 as a scratch disk and wd0 for MS-DOG. (The Seagate ST351A/X disks
are junk, but storage is storage.) Note that you cannot boot from disks
attached to the second controller. The FreeBSD and NetBSD boot loaders
depend on the BIOS to access boot devices, and the BIOS cannot access
the second controller, so you're out of luck. All boot partitions must
reside on disks attached to the primary controller.

As I said before, Linux can support a second controller (with a patch) too,
and if you *really* want, you can use this arrangement with MS-DOG as well,
provided you install a special driver. (There's a thing called 3drvs260.zip
available at the usual MS-DOG archives (wuarchive, oak.oakland.edu, etc...)
in the diskutil directory that should do the trick.)


: Call me curious .. 

You're curious. :)

: Cheers,
: Phil
: -- 
: Phil Knaack                  flipk@iastate.edu       flipk@cs.iastate.edu
: 1304 Florida Apt #3          flipk@blade.vorpal.com  flipk@vorpal.com
: Ames IA 50014           " .. it wasn't me, honest!"

Hope this helps.

-Bill

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