Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 13:31:25 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com> To: samurai@iosys.net (Rich Bornhofer) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Disk Geometry. Message-ID: <199608081131.NAA00735@eac.iafrica.com> In-Reply-To: <3209B753.E6E@iosys.net> from "Rich Bornhofer" at Aug 8, 96 04:45:55 am
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Rich Bornhofer wrote: > > Hello, > > I have been trying for about 2 weeks now to get freebsd to install on > my machine, with no luck. I am starting to be convinced that it has > something to do with my disk drive geometry, as by changing the geometry > to various settings (in the fdisk portion of the install) I am able to > get errors to occur at different places, ie, i have been able to access > the bin.aa once, pull up bin.aa, bin.ab, and bin.ac once, and one time, > the installer couldn't find bin.ab... No matter how far i get, all the > files are ultimately corrupt. This leads me to believe that since almost > _every_ file i have downloaded (in binary) has been either in the wrong > gunzip format or failed checksum, that the installer can't seem to get a > 'clean' read of the files from my dos partion. Here is what it looks > like : > > E-IDE 1.6GIG drive. Fips'ed initialy to have 2 primary dos partitions, > c:drive for dos related stuff (771 MEG) and d: for Windows (95) related > stuff (772 MEG). (I have 2 primary dos partiitions, only c: is bootable) > I then used fips again to cut d: down by 250MEG to allow for Freebsd. > Fips created a 3rd primary drive that i deleted for Freebsd to install > on. > My current Drive geometry as set up in my CMOS is: > > 786 cylinders, 64 heads, and 63 sectors/track. > > This is what i got from MSD with regards to what DOS 6.22 can see: > > C: Fixed Disk, CMOS Type 46 > 392 Cylinders, 64 Heads > 512/bytes/sector, 63 Sectors/Track > CMOS Fixed Disk Parameters > 786 cynlinders, 64 Heads > 63 Sectors/Track > D: Fixed Disk, CMOS Type 0 > 267 Cylinders, 64 Heads > 512/bytes/sector, 63 Sectors/Track > CMOS Fixed Disk Parameters > 24783 Cynlinders, 30 Heads > 60 Sectors/Track > > <note: i have never had any problems accessing files in dos or windows> > > When the install probe looks at my disk, it reports : > > 3145 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors, 512 bytes/track > > When i ran the 'pfdisk.exe' program, it reported : > > 785 cylinders, 64 heads, 63 sectors/track > > I have tried 785/63/63, 3145/16/63, and 786/64/63.. None of these > geometries seems to allow the installer to properly read the files i > have downloaded from the ftp.freebsd.org site ( and the last attempt i > made, the files (well the 3 i loaded to see if they could be read) were > from ftp3.freebsd.org.. still couldn't read the files). I am at a > complete loss for what to do to get the installer to be able to read > these files, and i am presuming that even if i were to do the ftp > install (and avoid reading from dos) I would still have problems with > freebsd being able to access it's own files if the geometry isn't set up > for what the disk is expecting. (is that correct?) > Oh, BTW, i am trying to get the 2.1.5R release installed, i don't know > if that makes any difference, but at one point i was able to get Linux > (slackware from cd) to install on this system (at the time i was running > win3.11, but still had this partitioning scheme.. this exact scheme), > perhaps the fact that it came from CD makes a difference, but i will be > trying to install the base distribution from dos later thismorning, as i > am off to download those files to see if it will install. > I am very much wanting to try FreeBSD, and if some guru could delve > into this dilema and offer some helpful insight (other than formatting > the whole thing and making logical drives ;), I would be very much > appriciative. > > Thank you for you time in advance, > > Savant, the not so knowledgeable ;) Problems have been reported when accessing certain DOS partitions from FreeBSD. Typically this problem occurs on large IDE drives where 64-head translation is in effect. This can cause an installation from a DOS partition to fail. I'd suggest you could try installing (at least) the first few distribution files from floppy disk, to see if they get read and written correctly. If DOS partition access is the problem, you will not be able to mount your DOS partition (reliably) once FreeBSD is installed. However, the rest of the system should be unaffected. -- Robert Nordier
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