*BSD News Article 53613


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Weird instability with 2.1 (10/5 SNAP)
Date: 29 Oct 1995 17:01:51 +0100
Organization: Private FreeBSD site, Dresden.
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <4708hf$h5@uriah.heep.sax.de>
References: <46c5h6$d6n@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>
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Chuck G. <chuckg@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> wrote:

> *New* Maxtor 540 Mb hard drive. *New* BIOS
>add-in board for Logical Block Addressing.


>Symptoms:
>
>1)	cc crash during kernel build.
>
>	Attempts to build a kernel are repeatedly interrupted by
>	compiler crashes, usually "Bus Error".

...

>I am suspicious of the BIOS that allows me to use a disk with more than
>1024 cylinders. The swap space reaches into that unexplored (by me)
>territory. I *assumed* everything would be OK since the BIOS would
>handle the details, but this is my first time trying to use a big drive
>on a PC and I don't know if I am doing something unwise or unsupported.

The BIOS is not used by FreeBSD, you could always use FreeBSD with any
number of cylinders of your drive (actually, no more than 64 K i
believe, since this is the controller limitation).

You would have better spent your money in a SCSI controller & drive.

(I don't suspect your BIOS, but perhaps your controller, or the way it
is handled by FreeBSD.  FreeBSD cannot make any use of the advanced
features of your IDE controller.)

Revert to your old controller, and see if it would work (even with
more than 1024 cylinders, as long as the root partition resides
below).
-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)