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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.periphs.scsi Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoregon.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!uknet!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!edcogsci!richard From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: Disk geometry yet again Message-ID: <DEwGt0.E5w@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 14:41:22 GMT Lines: 27 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:6194 comp.periphs.scsi:37684 While installing a new SCSI disk for use on FreeBSD 2.0.5, I blundered and used the wrong disk geometry, with the result the my boot manager was unable to find the BSD slice. Since it would have been incredibly tedious to start again, I just used fdisk to change the geometry, while leaving the slices unchanged (except for the first (currently unused) slice, which I adjusted so that it still started one track in). This seems to work, though when I mount the filesystems I still get a warning that the caculated geometry doesn't match that in the disk label. - Is this safe, or is there some disaster waiting to happen? - Can I safely change the disklabel to have the same geometry as the BIOS, without affecting the existing partitions? - Is there any disadvantage to having partitions that don't start on the (fictional) cylinder boundaries? A related question: years ago, when partitioning Sun SCSI disks, I remember leaving "spare" cylinders, presumably in case of disk errors. Everything I've heard since then implies that SCSI disks handle this automagically - can someone explain? Thanks -- Richard -- "... we were extremely sceptical, like most people, about 'conspiracy theories of history' ..." - The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail