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Date:      Sun, 07 Feb 1999 12:26:28 -0800
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        Rico Pajarola <pajarola@cybertime.ch>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Fully Dedicated HD may clobber some BIOS' 
Message-ID:  <199902072026.MAA07134@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 07 Feb 1999 17:04:30 %2B0100." <3.0.32.19990207170425.0092c9e0@shrike.overmind.ch> 

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> >Interesting, all these "well known" names (Compaq, HP, Siemens) seem to have
> >problems with it...
...
> So if it doesn't work, it's not because DD is a bad (or wrong) thing, but

Even though it is a bad (and wrong) thing.

> the BIOS checks for something it just should not check (ie it should only
> look at the signature on the master boot record, and if it is ok, it should
> load it without any further tests).

This is actually exactly the problem; they *do* read the MBR, and they 
*do* trust it, and because the DD MBR *is* broken, these BIOSsen fail.

> Sorry if this was a bit too loud, but I just don't want to see DD go away.

It will go away as soon as someone puts on their toxic-waste suit and 
wades into libdisk to fix its geometry-extraction code.

-- 
\\  Sometimes you're ahead,       \\  Mike Smith
\\  sometimes you're behind.      \\  mike@smith.net.au
\\  The race is long, and in the  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\  end it's only with yourself.  \\  msmith@cdrom.com



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