Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 08:06:29 -0600 (CST) From: "Roger P. Johnson" <rpj@fep.hirshfields.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: follow up: Re: HELP! on drive Geometry and I just can't get it! Just cant't Message-ID: <199803131406.IAA18050@fep.hirshfields.com>
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Hi,
And thanks for your suggestions ...
>> Doug White:
>> The partition doesn't need to stick; just blow away the DOS partition you
>> create in sysinstall and then install FreeBSD on everything else. :)
Doug, I saw you posting this reply a while back to someone else, in fact, I
saved that reply to try. I tried that just before my original posting, with
much hope, that that would work. It didn't *in this case*. :(
>> Brian Beattie:
>> I have sen similar problems. I am prety sure the problem is that the 1542
>> and the 2940 bios'es use different geometries. The solution is to be sure
>> that you fdisk the disk, on the controller you will use the disk on, with
>> the geometry that that controller will use.
>>
>> In line with my policy of "if at first you don't succeed, get a bigger
>> hammer" the following.
>>
>> Install the 2940 and connect the disk.
>> using ^A go into the SCSI Utilities and format the drive.
>> boot off the install floppy and install.
>>
>> I believe this should work.
>>
>> PS. I have both a 1542 and a 2940U in my 3.0 current system at home.
Brian, I tried low level formatting it again (been through sooo many combo's,
thought I'd try from scratch again), re-installing FBSD from scratch, dedicating
the whole drive to FBSD, no luck. I get that 'Read error' on boot again. :(
Brian, is that 1Gb drive you use at home with the 1542/2940U ??? Would it be
a Seagate drive ?
I've tried a "shared" disk in the partion editor, using as much of the disk as I can
for FBSD, making sure the partion is indeed active, and this time I get the message
"No operating system" on boot. Geez. :(
I've read the man pages on fdisk, disklabel, man I just cannot get these 1 GB drives
to work with the 2940 series contollers.
I've got 2 brand new ST31055N 1GB SCSC-3 hard drives as of 6 months ago,
1 brand new 2940AU SCSI-3 controller
and 1 brand new 2940 SCSI-2 controller, all that I cannot use!
I really fail to understand why I MUST, MUST have a dos partion installed on these
drives in order to get the geometry correct and for FBSD to boot.
I have no alternative but to stay with the 1542 ISA controller and these 1GB drives. Yuk.
Are 1542's even made anymore ? If so how much longer till they are discontinued?
All I can say is that since 1GB HD are pretty rare nowdays, I do have a 2940 w/2GB w/FBSD
working, maybe when the old 1GB drive crashes, this icky problem with the 1GB drives will
disapear also. BUT then the 2GB drives will be phased out and I'll have this same problem
all over again with the new drives at the current time. Ugh!
This HAS to be a contoller/HD combo issue!
I don't get it. I quit on this topic. I'm using the 1542. Ugh.
Thank you for your reply's and suggestions.
Roger
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