Subject: Re: ncr driver working well with 53c875?
To: None <freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG, current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
List: current-users
Date: 05/27/1997 08:07:27
As Marc Slemko wrote:

> Note that the Tekram's BIOS doesn't like disks partitioned using FreeBSD's
> dedicated mode and will hang on boot if it sees one.  

Argl!  That's the second BIOS i know that chokes on them.  The first
one is the newer HP BIOS from the Vectras and (ick!) the Netservers.
They simply ignore the disk, go on to the floppy drive, and yell: No
boot disk!

Anyway, with HP, all bets are off, no doubt.  They are a dinosaur.
But Tekram has even contributed the SCSI driver to FreeBSD, so it
might not be in vain asking them to fix this.  The BIOS should not try
to justify the feasibility of an MBR, it should just load and execute
it.

Stefan, do you have a connection to Tekram?

I think BSD/OS employs a similar mode like FreeBSD's dedicated mode if
you tell them to occupy the entire disk.  They don't even pretend to
fake an fdisk table at all (while FreeBSD does it out of tradition).

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)