Is it possible that you are trying to use a primary swap on something
other than the first drive listed as the swap drive in the config file?
That is, for 1.2, if you have a line of the form:
netbsd root on sd0 swap on sd0 and sd1 and sd2
and you boot with a wd0 drive, you'll never be able to swap to anywhere
because the primary swap device has to be listed as the first device in the
swap list.

The way I know to check for this is to do a 
pstat -sk
and if it says swap map goof then you're not really swapping at all and
this is your problem.

The only fix I know is to recompile a kernel with the proper ordering in
place.  Hopefully you have enough memory to compile everything and link it
without requiring swap.

Hope this helps.
On May 12,  4:53pm, Bob Sutterfield wrote:
} Subject: Re: swapon: Device not configured?
} Peter Seebach writes:
} > syntax is "root on sd0a swap on sd0b and sd1b" and then everything
} > works.
} 
} That's what I would have thought too, and that's how I had it before;
} thus my question when it didn't just work.
} 
} Christoph Badura writes:
} > "swap on sd0 and sd1" works in my kernels.
} 
} I tried that too with no change in behavior.  I still see "Device not
} configured" when I try to `swapon /dev/sd1b`.
} 
} Other filesystems on sd1 are fine.  The majors/minors look right, for
} both the raw and block devices.
} 
} Any other ideas anyone?
} --
} Bob Sutterfield                         +1 909 794 1151
} Mission Aviation Fellowship / MAFlink Technical Manager
} mailto:Bob@XC.Org                 http://www.XC.Org/bob
}              Pray Globally - Serve Locally
>-- End of excerpt from Bob Sutterfield