From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Apr 10 11:05:33 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id LAA26368 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:05:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (uconnvm.uconn.edu [137.99.26.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA26359 for ; Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:05:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ruddles.stat.uconn.edu by UConnVM.UConn.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP; Wed, 10 Apr 96 14:04:56 EDT Received: by ruddles.stat.uconn.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21041; Wed, 10 Apr 96 13:59:50 EDT Date: Wed, 10 Apr 96 13:59:50 EDT From: jeff@stat.uconn.edu (Jeffrey M. Metcalf) Message-Id: <9604101759.AA21041@ruddles.stat.uconn.edu> To: lehey.pad@sni.de Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi, I'm sorry, my original statement about FreeBSD living entirely beyond the 1024th cylinder is not correct. What happened is that I defragged my hard drive and then used FIPS to partition my hard drive beyond my original primary DOS partiton which had a size of > 500MB. I then assumed from the discussion in 'Installing and Running FreeBSD' that I must have FreeBSD living beyond the 1024th cylinder. The truth is I failed to look at my Disk Geometry. My Windows '95 hardware summary says that I have the following geometry, 534 Cylinders 64 Heads 63 Sectors per track 512 Bytes per sector I am not quite sure I completely understand this since I have a 1.6GB hard drive and the numbers don't multiply correctly. Unless of course Windows '95 is not couning the portion that is invisible due to FreeBSD. This is probably the case and I would have to write back with the complete geometry. My question is that although I have a working version of FreeBSD installed, I am currently unable to mount my DOS partition without risking the integrity of the FreeBSD slices. When I attempt to mount, I get a message to the effect of mounted size not a multiple of root partition I am sorry I am unable to give you more detail, but I do not have access to my system at the moment to give you the precise message. I will follow this message with the correct staments. I presume that the problem lies in the way I used FIPS to split my primary DOS partition. To correct it, I guess I will have to reinstall FreeBSD using FIPS to create the extended DOS partion that has a geometry compatible with the primary partition. What do you suggest? Should I create an extended DOS partition at the 'end' of the hard disk? I would like to make it >= 500MB with a geometry compitible for mounting the large primary DOS partiton at the front of the disk. Thank You, JM >From lehey.pad@sni.de Tue Apr 9 06:37:55 1996 Return-Path: Received: from nixpbe.pdb.sni.de (mail.sni.de) by ruddles.stat.uconn.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15176; Tue, 9 Apr 96 06:37:43 EDT Received: (from nerv@localhost) by nixpbe.pdb.sni.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA12736 for jeff@stat.uconn.edu; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 11:24:33 +0200 Message-Id: <199604090924.LAA12736@nixpbe.pdb.sni.de> Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD To: jeff@stat.uconn.edu (Jeffrey M. Metcalf) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 96 12:38:53 MET DST From: Greg Lehey Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <9604081310.AA11384@ruddles.stat.uconn.edu>; from "Jeffrey M. Metcalf" at Apr 8, 96 9:10 am X-Mailer: xmail 2.4 (based on ELM 2.2 PL16) Status: R > I just received the text 'Installing and Running FreeBSD' by Greg Lehey and in > it he suggests to keep the root partition in the first 1024 cylinders of my > EIDE 1.6GB hard disk. However, I have managed to install and support a FreeBSD > 2.1.0 system on my hard disk living entirely well beyond the 1024th cylinder for > some time. Congratulations. Can you tell us more about your configuration? I suspect that it depends on the BIOS: as I said in my book, the limitations stem from the maximum values that most BIOSes understand for heads, tracks and sectors. If you have a BIOS which is less brain-damaged, it will work. > If I plan to never communicate with my DOS partition, need I worry > about any other stability problems if I keep my system installed as > is? No. As Mike Smith said, once it's up and running, you have won. I don't even think that DOS partition access should be a problem. Greg