Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:12:20 -0500 From: Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> To: "David E. Meier" <dev@eth0.ch> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unable to create the partition. Too big? Message-ID: <419E2974.2020605@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <3145.217.162.71.141.1100814970.squirrel@217.162.71.141> References: <2004.217.162.71.141.1100813306.squirrel@217.162.71.141> <20041118214625.GP3996@gentoo-npk.bmp.ub> <3145.217.162.71.141.1100814970.squirrel@217.162.71.141>
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David E. Meier wrote: > Yep, that did work. I did not delete the swap partition before. After > deleting all of the partitions I was able to create the table as intended. > > However, I've installed FreeBSD in a similar way a couple of times before > and never seen this happen. Does anyone know the reason for it? Dave. The root partition is somewhat special, in that the BIOS needs to pass control of the system to a file (the bootloader, and then the kernel) it loads from there. Once FreeBSD is started, it has a more reasonable view of the world and is not subject to limitations sometimes found in old BIOSes. In particular, there used to be a requirement that the boot partition fit within the first 1024 cylinders of the boot drive, which obviously dates back to C/H/S geometries rather than the modern LBA view that reasonable software like FreeBSD would prefer to use. sysinstall has some understanding of these limitations, but the resulting error messages tend to be imprecise. While this explanation does not exactly match your description of what happened (as I'd expect the creation of / to fail, not /usr), well, it doesn't surprise me that putting a large swap partition first before / doesn't always work. :-) Put / first and you'll probably have better luck. -- -Chuck
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