*BSD News Article 84217


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From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: LBA and Disk Geometry
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 19:57:02 +0000
Organization: Erol's Internet Services
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steve ames wrote:
> 
> I have an un-installed copy of FreeBSD (on CD)I obtained some months ago.  At
> that time there was little support for ATAPI CD ROM's, and I didn't have to
> dough to go out and buy SCSI stuff.  Now I'm going to try again, and
> if I can manage it FreeBSD will be installed in its own box in case I mess up
> big time.  I've been studying the FAQ and see that using LBA is not
> recommended.  Is that still relevant, that is, using LBA from the
> motherboard's BIOS?  Will FreeBSD see behind the BIOS?  Will this give me
> additional install headaches, if I use LBA?
> 
> A Linux guy I know says that LBA doesn't trouble Linux. - Please, no flames
> :-)
> 

Hi, Steve!

I'm currently running FreeBSD 2.1R on several machines; the most common
HD is a 1.2 GB Western Digital Caviar series (but this holds true for
other drives and sizes as well). I have discovered that for each
installation the default assumed drive geometry is actually the LBA
model. Even if I force it back to the physical drive geometry, Boot
Manager will not start FreeBSD if LBA mode is disabled in the BIOS. It
makes no difference that the geometry specified in the BIOS itself is
"normal," not LBA and not "large."

You might get the same results if you just enable LBA mode, without
specifying it for the drive.
-- 
Ken

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