Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 08:56:51 -0400 From: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu> To: bl29x5@earthlink.net Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Partition size Message-ID: <3923E892.A2B3E4D7@eng.ufl.edu>
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> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 23:21:58 -0400 > From: "Mike Boto" <bl29x5@earthlink.net> > Subject: Re: Partition size > > I tried using several alternate setups in the BIOS config, and it always > reverted back to the same thing: > "Mode: User > Cylinder: 4092 > ...et al What is the rest of the geometry it is reporting (what is the et al part)? > " > As for a second partition, I cannot add anything whatsoever because fdisk > believes the capacity of the hard drive to be entirely mapped out (900MB in > DOS > and 1100 in BSD), leaving another 14GB free yet ignored. This is almost certainly because the BIOS is reporting the wrong disk size. If it has the option of using LBA mode to access the disk, that is what you want. If it doesn't, your BIOS may be too old to be usable. But, there are a few things you might try (I haven't used them myself, so I don't know what their limitations are): The FreeBSD FDISK will let you specify the drive geometry (I think it's the "G" command). You should be able to use that to make your entire drive visible. You have to be careful though. FreeBSD uses the BIOS information to boot, so your entire boot partition must be within the part of the drive the BIOS knows about it. If you create one partition that fits in the first 1024 cylinders (which is probably what your BIOS knows about), and another that fills the rest of the drive, I suspect you will be OK. There is more information on manually setting the drive geometry somewhere on www.freebsd.org, either in the handbook, the FAQ, or a tutorial. If FreeBSD is the only operating system you will have on this computer, you might get better results if you use the disk in "dedicated" mode, i.e. using the native BSD disk structure, rather than Microsoft's with its limitations. I don't remember how much effect the BIOS limitations have when you are using this mode -- you still probably have to keep the boot slice in the first 1024 cylinders. Also, large drives usually have a jumper that tells them to lie about their geometry to make old BIOSes happy. It should be claiming to be 8GB in that case. If you don't have that jumper on, maybe putting it on will help. If it's on, try taking it off... Good luck. -- Bob > > > On Wed, 17 May 2000, Mike Boto wrote: > > > > > I recently replaced my 4.0 GB hard drive with a 15.3 GB one, and when > > > putting FreeBSD on it, found that I could only access roughly 2GB of > > > the entire disk. Now I had read about how this was a problem in various > > > DOS formats, as well as Win95A, but I didn't consider it a factor when > > > using the entire disk for a BSD install. Out of curiosity, I tried > > > installing Win98 (the only other operating system discs I had on > > > hand) to see if it was a hardware issue, but it recognized the entire > > > drive with no problems. I've been looking for a solution to this for an > > > hour or so, and I was hoping someone here could assist me on how to > > > utilize the entire drive. > > > > You're probably running into a bios limitation. Your choices are to use > > an alternate bios setup which "translates" the number of cylinders into > > something under 1024, or to setup freebsd with two partitions, or slices. > > > > --- David > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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