Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 22:26:41 -0400 From: Gary Chrysler <tcg@ime.net> To: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Cc: Nathan Denny <SCHCATS@siu.edu>, questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Disk geometry problems. Message-ID: <321A73E0.593A@ime.net> References: <199608210001.JAA07495@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
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Michael Smith wrote: > > Firstly, _please_ don't spam the lists with installation questions. > > Nathan Denny stands accused of saying: > > > > I tried a floppy and DOS partition installation of FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE and > > 2.1.5-RELEASE to each of a 386-40 w/2 IDE 115MB disks, a 486DLC-40 w/1 850MB IDE > > disk, and a Pentium-100 w/1 1.2GB IDE disk. > > > > Each time, I got the warning Calculated sectors percyclinder (xxxx) does not > > agree ... or something and the installation crashed with a written -1 of 512 > > bytes, invalid gzip, etc. > > The 'calculated sectors...' message is harmless and can be ignored. > > The 'invalid gzip etc.' message on the other hand, means that your > distribution is corrupted. That's all there is to it. > > > It is not the data or the media. I've tried two versions, > > downloaded 10 times, from 3 sites, so at least one of those > > installations should have worked. > > It _is_ the data, or the means that you are using to get it onto the > target system. Without knowing what that is, or which 3 sites you have > installed from, nobody can help you. > > > It seems to me that the installation program reads the data, and > > caches it in core memory. When the buffer is full it flushes it to > > the disk. However, since the calculated geometry is wrong, it tries > > to write it to some unknown destination and thppt...crash! > > You are guessing, and you are wrong. Don't. > > > How does FreeBSD get such a wild geometry? It seems to detect the > > correct geometry at boot and partition parts, but when it creates > > the file system it's 100%+ wrong. > > The geometry used for the filesystem is a fiction designed to defeat > some of the old optimisations built into the filesystem design back > when the old RA81 was a hot piece of disk hardware and it was worth > the system's time caring about the geometry. It has nothing to do > with your mundane data corruption problem. > > > Nate. Sorry for popin in on the tail here, Geuss I missed the original. But are the files being ftp'd in binary?? Yup, I trimmed the CC: -Enjoy Gary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Improve America's Knowledge... Share yours The Borg... Where minds meet (207) 929-3848
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