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From: "Andrey A. Chernov" <ache>
Message-Id: <199506201819.LAA01697@freefall.cdrom.com>
Subject: Re: Just FYI, new bootblocks unable to load old (pre-slice) systems
To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 11:19:29 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: ache@astral.msk.su, hackers@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199506201614.CAA17112@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Jun 21, 95 02:14:08 am
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> 
> >Maybe it is intentional, but very unpleasant :-(
> >New bootblocks says:
> >partition is out of reach from the bios
> 
> 	if (max_sector_in_FreeBSD_boot_partition / sectors_per_cylinder > 1024)
> 	    ^^^^ from disklabel ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^ from BIOS ^^^^^ ^ bug
> 		error("partition is out of reach...");
> 
> Booting from FreeBSD partitions that have one or more sectors beyond (>= :-)
> cylinder 1024 can't be guaranteed because /kernel or its metadata might have
> sectors beyond cylinder 1024.  Such partitions should be rare - keeping the
> root partition small guarantees that it is below cylinder 1024 if it starts
> at cylinder 0.
> 

Sigh. I have 1119 cylinders on root partition since 1.1.5.1 days
and never /kernel occurse out of 1024, it seems that it is practically
impossible due to free space usually present at the end of partition.
In any case this error should be converted to more readable warning
instead i.e.:
warning(
"root partition > 1024 cyls, BIOS can't load kernel stored beyond this limit");
If we agree on that, I'll commit it.