From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Jan 26 00:05:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA25806 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:05:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.19]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA25800 for ; Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:05:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.3/8.6.9) id TAA22463; Sun, 26 Jan 1997 19:05:31 +1100 Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 19:05:31 +1100 From: Bruce Evans Message-Id: <199701260805.TAA22463@godzilla.zeta.org.au> To: j@uriah.heep.sax.de, jmz@cabri.obs-besancon.fr Subject: Re: fdisk headache Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> The real problem is then when I want to label the disk: I get >> >> ioctl DIOCWLABEL: Operation not supported by device >> sd4s4: type 0xa5, start 1, end = 6265199, size 6265199 >> sd4s4: C/H/S end 666/5/55 (220109) != end 6265199: invalid > >The slice code knows about various BIOS problems. It assumes a few >bogus geometry values (including the 1024 cylinders one). However, >the total number of sectors in the BSD slice must still match the `c' >partition value -- 6265199. There is one fatal error here and one warning. The fatal DIOCWLABEL error is probably caused by attempting to label a device that doesn't support labeling. Surprise :-). /dev/rsd4 does not support labeling. /dev/rsd4s4c (or its alias /dev/rsd4s4, or if s4 is the first BSD slice, its alias /dev/rsd4c) supports labeling. The fatal error may mask another fatal error. The disk size and the `c' partition size in the label should both match the size of the slice -- 6265199 (it may work to use a smaller size at least for the `c' partition, but there is normally no reason to). The warning about the slice size mismatch is printed to help diagnose errors like this. Unfortunately, it is only printed if the `bootverbose' flag is set (it is normally set by booting with -v), and the warning about the invalid BIOS geometry is also printed. (The BIOS geometry is irrelevant here. It is probably caused by the installer not rounding the slice size to a cylinder boundary.) Bruce