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From: rhh@ct.picker.com (Randall Hopper)
Message-Id: <199606121425.KAA16554@elmer.picker.com>
Subject: Re: FreeBSD boot problem
To: nate@sri.MT.net (Nate Williams)
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 10:25:12 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <199606052357.RAA23947@rocky.sri.MT.net> from "Nate Williams" at Jun 5, 96 05:57:52 pm
Reply-To: rhh@ct.picker.com
Organization:  Picker International, CT Division
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 >> I am using a 486/66 PC, 16MB RAM, 1.2GB IDE hard disk. I had previously
 >> installed Windows 95 in a 500MB partition, leaving the rest free for other
 >> OSes - but when I read the installation book I learned that the FreeBSD
 >> root filesystem must be within the first 504MB... how annoying!
 >
 >Blame it on IBM.  Unless you have a special BIOS, this limitation is a
 >hardware limitation and not a FreeBSD specific limitation.

Right.  If you've got a BIOS that supports LBA, you're OK.  The fundamental
limitation here isn't 504/512MB, it's 1024 (physical, or remapped if
running LBA) cylinders.  If you've got LBA BIOS, then your cylinder count
is much lower and you can boot anywhere below remapped cylinder 1024.
I've been doing this on my box at home for some time (2.1.0-STABLE).

Randall Hopper
rhh@ct.picker.com