Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 11:17:07 -0500 From: "J.F. Gratton" <jiefg@generation.net> To: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Troubles Installing the OS... Message-ID: <199601211617.LAA23898@sunserver.generation.net>
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Good morning everyone....
I'm sorry to bother you with some problems, I guess you might be kinda
overloaded with such mail traffic, but I seem to be unable to install
FreeBSD at the place (partition) of MY choosing.
Nowhere in your doc is a place that suggests that you have to install
FreeBSD in a PRIMARY partition, so I assumed that I could install it in an
unformatted logical one, but somehow it fails. Actually, in the INSTALL.TXT
file, there's a section concerning the utility FIPS that suggested that you
could install both from a PRIMARY or LOGICAL (... or so I assumed).
To help you, here follows a full description of my equipment
(hardware/software/OS that I run), followed by my partition scheme... Of
course, some info here could be irrevelant, but I give it to you anyway, one
never knows :)
AMD 80486 dx4-100MHz
16 MB RAM 72pins
SiS 471G Motherboard
ATI Mach 32 VLB video card
Western Digital AC24xx 425MB Hard Drive (Master)
Maxtor 7850 850MB Hard Drive (Slave)
SB 16 (OEM) + Panasonic 563 CDROM
OS that I run: Lose95, Dos6.22, OS/2 Warp, Linux (I'll remove it as soon I
can get FreeBSD to run), and hopefully FreeBSD :)
Partition scheme:
Master HD (Western Digital 425MB) 425MB formatted gives 405MB
Primary, 150MB
Extended logical, 255MB
Partitions lettered C: to F:
Slave HD (Maxtor 850MB) 850MB gives 812-813MB formatted
Primary for OS/2 Boot Manager (2MB)
Extended Logical for the remainder
Partitions lettered G: to J:
Ok, here's the problem.... my Maxtor has 2 areas labelled "freespace" by
OS/2's fdisk. Those two 1-2MB areas are unreachable, whatever I try.
Apparently it's a problem all Maxtor drives have. Each area is found at each
end of the disk. Nothing I've tried could correct this: OS/2's fdisk,
MSDOS's one, etc.... Could this be a reason why I can't install FreeBSD ?
I realize now that I haven't really explained myself.... sorry if my English
is so poor, being a French Canadian, well... you know :) Let's try again.
I want to install FreeBSD at the end of my second HD (the Maxtor 850MB).
There's a 190MB unused just for it at the end of the drive.
The problem I see is that, althought this 190MB is labelled "Unused" or
"FreeSpace" by OS/2's FDisk (which I prefer over MSDOS' one), this
unformatted partition is part of the Extended partiotion created a long time
ago. Could this be a reason FreeBSD's FDisk reports no unused space (besides
the 2 areas described above) ? Do I have to re-partition the whole drive so
I'll have 2 Extended partitions, one for all my MSDOS-OS/2 stuff, the other
a 190MB one for FreeBSD ? I'm not even sure it's "legal" having 2 Extended
partitions.
The thing I really want to avoid is having to create a 190MB PRIMARY
partition for FreeBSD. The reason I want to install all non-DOS partitions
at the end of my drive is to avoid "letter conflicts". Creating a Primary
will switch the D letter to that partition and will mess up all other
partitions... Took me a long time to customize my HDs the way I want, I
wouldn't want to mess it up now for a new OS.
I tried to install FreeBSD with the 190MB area unformatted (unpartitioned,
that is), I also tried while it was considered a 190 Logical Partition (my
so-called drive K:). Same result, FreeBSD's FDisk utility reports no free
space on the drive.
Hope you can help me with it, I'd really like to install this Operating
System....
Oh ! Last question.... I'm supposed to buy a new Hard Disk this week, a
Fujitsu 1GB HD. Will FreeBSD be able to recognize a 3 HDs system ? Thanks
Ok, guess that's about it. Sorry if this mail seems "loaded", I'm kinda
depressed now :)
Thanks for taking the time for reading and answering me,
Jean-Fran=E7ois Gratton ("Jeff")
jiefg@generation.net
ec391883@merlin.si.uqam.ca
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