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Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 12:27:55 +0300
From: Sergiu Partenie <sergiu.partenie@connex.ro>
Organization: MobiFon S.A.
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To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG,
	"questions@FreeBSD.org" <questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: 4.0-RELEASE install problems with old ATA hdd
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Hello all

I tried to install (for the first time) 4.0-RELEASE on an 

486dx50
8Mb ram
ed0: 3c503
ad0: Conner periphals CP3000 42Mb
ad1: Maxtor 119Mb

the kernel misdetects the geometry of ad0 - the 40Mb ata hdd
the bios CHS settings are 977/5/17 (Type 17) but freebsd detects it as
1053/2/40

I tried to fdisk-it with no data on it: it screams hell with I/O errors
and sysinstall aborts the instalation proces returning to the menu

Adter reading the faq I made a small dos partition (500k), the kernel
still detects the disk wrongly but fdisk reports a hore human value
(971/5/17)
After making a partition/slice for freebsd (either in the free space or
using all the hdd) and [W]riting it (or using Comit) all hell breaks
loose:

panic: Going nowhere without my init !
syncing disks...
done
Uptime: xx:xx
Automatic reboot in 15 seconds - press a key on the console to abort

and in Alt-F2 (with debug enabled)

DEBUG: Notify: Writting partition information to drive ad0
ad0: HARD READ ERROR blk#18 status=59 error=10
ad0: HARD READ ERROR blk#857 status=59 error=10
sysinstall:read:Input/output error
init died (signal 0, exit1)

... the partition information is not written but the BootMgr is.

everything works okey-dokey with ad1

The openbsd and the netbsd boot disks will also misdetect the geometry

The BIOS autodetect finds the drive with the wrong geometry but is not
able to acces the disk in that way (low level format fails) everything
is ok if i set the geometry by hand.

The linux kernel will sometimes misreport the geometry but that can be
easy fixed with the "hdX=cyl,head,sect" kernel boot option. (the drive
was used as a / partition for a linux box)

Is there a posibility to pass to the freebsd kernel a similar option ?
is there something like that ? and without recompiling the kernel
(nobody i know in this side of the planet uses bsd - only linux) ? I
have used Linux for 5 years but i'm new to *BSD ...

thank you very much.

--
Sergiu Partenie - UNIX System Administrator - MobiFon S.A.
sergiu.partenie@connex.ro psergiu@xmail.ro #1764 093250006


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