From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Feb 18 22: 2:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mss.rdc2.nsw.optushome.com.au (ha1.rdc2.nsw.optushome.com.au [203.164.2.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E763A37B401 for ; Sun, 18 Feb 2001 22:02:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from co3027913-a.optushome.com.au ([203.164.216.140]) by mss.rdc2.nsw.optushome.com.au (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with ESMTP id <20010219060215.BFTK26799.mss.rdc2.nsw.optushome.com.au@co3027913-a.optushome.com.au> for ; Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:02:15 +1100 Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.0.20010219162509.009f5170@mail> X-Sender: alnesbit@mail X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:05:49 +1100 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Andrew Nesbit Subject: ATA HDD geometry confusion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I'm trying to install 4.2-R from a bootable CD-ROM onto an IBM 30GB (75GXP series) HDD, with the whole disk used for FreeBSD, set up in compatibility mode. The disk is set to LBA mode in the BIOS. The help screens in sysinstall say that it is important to get the geometry of the HDD correct. So far I have 3 conflicting reports of what my HDD geometry is: 1. 3737 / 255 / 63 from sysinstall's fdisk (given as default) 2. 59560 / 16 / 63 from BIOS and FreeBSD device probe 3. 27724 / 4 / ??? (physical) from IBM's website 1. seems to be the LBA translation of 2, but not exactly (maybe it is "compensating" for compatibility mode?) I have no idea how 3. would fit into the picture. My question is: should I go with the default given by fdisk, or is something wrong which needs to be changed? Thanks. -Andrew Nesbit To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message