*BSD News Article 68279


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD <> Adaptec
Date: 11 May 1996 11:57:21 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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jm040795@fhda.edu (Raven) wrote:

> I used the utility to fdisk my second hard drive.  It complained about the
> geometry on the drive.

You should have read the installation notes to see what to do in this
case.  In short: if the displayed geometry matches your BIOS' setting
(which the installation program cannot always verify itself without
human interaction -- that's why the warning), then leave it as it is.
Otherwise, hit G) and enter the BIOS geometry settings.

>  Afterwards, my hard drives geometry was screwed
> up.

A "hard drives geometry" cannot be "screwed up".  A geometry is (in
the original sense) something that is determined by physical
parameters, not by software.  For all IDE drives, the geometry values
are always faked ones, and they are determined by the BIOS setup.  Of
course, FreeBSD does not and cannot change the BIOS settings (it
doesn't even know what a BIOS might be, or how to handle it).

>  I had to do a low level format.

That's been your panic reaction.  Don't hold us liable for your data
loss.  You wouldn't have to format the drive.  You should only have to
*low-level* format any modern drive in very rare situations these
days, basically only if your drive experienced too much bad sectors to
remap them itself.  Formatting can help here be re-organising the
drives' internal bad sector replacement table.  Anyway, i doubt you
even low-level formatted, you more likely have dumped a bunch of
zeroes all over it.

-- 
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. ;-)