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Date:      Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:10:25 -0700
From:      Darryl Okahata <darrylo@hpnmhjw.sr.hp.com>
To:        Bill Fenner <fenner@parc.xerox.com>
Cc:        freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Very disturbing boot block problems.. 
Message-ID:  <199609232310.AA070570225@hpnmhjw.sr.hp.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 23 Sep 1996 15:29:15 PDT." <96Sep23.152918pdt.177476@crevenia.parc.xerox.com> 

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> Is there any easy way to determine the BIOS geometry, since that's the one
> that's so important for the boot blocks?

     It depends on what you mean by "easy".  From Bruce's posting, one
way is to reboot with -v (at the "boot:" prompt, type "-v" and press
[enter]).  Once the system is back up, look at the first few dmesg
lines; you'll see a section like:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOS Geometries:
 0:03e23f20 0..994=995 cylinders, 0..63=64 heads, 1..32=32 sectors
 0 accounted for
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this example, there's only one disk: 995 cylinders, 64 heads, 32
sectors.  You'll have to look for the correct disk entry in your dmesg
and adjust accordingly.

> fdisk tells me:
> 
> ******* Working on device /dev/sd1 *******
> parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
> cylinders=3658 heads=6 sectors/track=96 (576 blks/cyl)

     You haven't given enough information.  You need to give the full
and complete output from fdisk and disklabel, in addition to the above
BIOS geometry:

	fdisk sd1
	disklabel sd1

     -- Darryl Okahata
	Internet: darrylo@sr.hp.com

DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Hewlett-Packard, or of the
little green men that have been following him all day.



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