From owner-freebsd-stable  Mon Feb 10 18:07:00 1997
Return-Path: <owner-stable>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA03267
          for stable-outgoing; Mon, 10 Feb 1997 18:07:00 -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 SAA03255
          for <stable@freebsd.org>; Mon, 10 Feb 1997 18:06:53 -0800 (PST)
Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.3/8.6.9) id NAA29989; Tue, 11 Feb 1997 13:05:47 +1100
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 13:05:47 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199702110205.NAA29989@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: mdavis@io.cts.com, stable@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: wd drive size detect
Sender: owner-stable@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>For some time now, I've had this appear during startup (and continue
>to even with 2.1.7-stable).
>
>wdc0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14 on isa
>wdc0: unit 0 (wd0): <>
                      ^name of drive is unknown too
>wd0: size unknown, using BIOS values
>wd0: 406MB (832608 sectors), 826 cyls, 16 heads, 63 S/T, 512 B/S
>wdc0: unit 1 (wd1): <>
>wd1: size unknown, using BIOS values
>wd1: 406MB (832608 sectors), 826 cyls, 16 heads, 63 S/T, 512 B/S
>
>What causes this, is it just a disklabel issue, and how would one
>correct this?

This is caused by the drive being old (6+ years) or broken.
All standard IDE and EIDE drives report their name and size.
The label has nothing to do with this message.  Support for
overriding the size claimed by the drive has been disabled and/or
broken for a year or two.  Falling back to the size claimed by the
BIOS works in most cases, apparently including yours (it fails
when the drive is unknown to the BIOS and when its number is
different from the BIOS number).  No fixes are known (except to
buy a new drive, which will also fix the smallness and slowness
of the old drive :-).

Bruce