This is yet-another-I-installed-NetBSD-but-it-won't-boot.
I've read the FAQ about this and understand that disk geometry 
translation is often the problem with this.  I'm not convinced
that this is the problem, though.

	I'm not seeing the endless reboot cycles symptom.  What
I'm seeing is the spinning baton get about one-eighth of the 
way through a rotation and then hanging.

	The disk is a 400-something meg Seagate.  The geometry 
is 899/15/62.  The reason that I'm not convinced it's a geometry
translation problem is that I haven't been able to find anything
that says what the other geometry is.  I've run pfdisk, and it 
says the geometry is 898/15/62 (although it says the disk starts
at sector 62 -- I'm assuming this is the 1-cylinder difference.)
I've run ide_conf, like the FAQ suggests, and the only thing it 
reports (before asking me to reboot) is 899/15/62.

	The system is an el-cheapo 486-DX40.  The IDE controller
is labelled "MT-203S".  The 3"x5" "user's manual" for the card
lists the jumpers, but nothing sticks out as having anything to 
do with geometry translation.  There are two jumpers related to 
the "harddish", one for enable/disable and the other for 
selecting the "harddish model".  The enable/disable does just 
that.  The other one has no discernible effect.

	If anyone has any handy suggestions for what to try now,
I'd appreciate them.  I would also appreciate any suggestions 
for a specific card to buy to replace it.  I've tried replacing
it with a (very) generic card I borrowed from a friend, but
that one didn't work, either.

Chad Mynhier <mynhier@cs.utk.edu>
Sorcerer's Apprentice, CS Department        
University of Tennessee, Knoxville                   
WWW: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mynhier/