Kjetil Bernhard Thomassen writes:
 > Unixfs does not work with my SCSI disk
 > --------------------------------------
 > 
 > When I try to mount my RiscBSD SCSI-disk with Unixfs, it gives me
 > the following error message:
 > 
 > "Error - Invalid filesystem superblock or unknown superblock format"
 > 
 > The same error message comes when I boot from the SCSI-disk, but
 > if I just ignore it, everything boots fine.
 > 

Are you using the new filecore ? UnixFS accesses the disk using
filecore operations. Also ensure theat the SWI base is correct for
your card's DiscOp.

 > bb_riscbsd
 > ----------
 > 
 > This did not check correctly for SCSI when typing S. It always
 > ended up with using ADFS. I just made a new copy of this program
 > and set it to SCSI all the time.

Right this little proggy has only been tested on cumana and powertec
cards AFAIK. These cards use SCSI_DiscOp. I'll change this. The
case-sensitivity is a problem tho'.

 > Also, it did not use the correct SWI for my SCSI card. It tried
 > to use an SWI called SCSI_DiscOp, but on the Acorn card, this
 > is correctly called SCSIFS_DiscOp. I believe that other SCSI
 > cards start their SWI's with SCSI_ in order to avoid conflict
 > with Acorn's software.
 > 
 > When these two problems were fixed, I managed to create a RiscBSD
 > partition on my HP SCSI disk.
 > 
 > I was also unable to use my whole second IDE disc with this program.
 > It needed to have a RISC OS partition on this disc, so I set up a
 > 30 MB partition with !Hform. !Hform was unable to format a 10 MB
 > partition as I originally intended.

If you want to use the whole disk for RiscBSD you don't need to use
bb_riscbsd. But you *do* need to invalidate any filecore boot block on
the disk. ie if you don't want a filecore section of the disk you need
to remove all evidence of it. One simple way of doing this is to
change the checksum byte (cf bb_riscbsd).

 > But, all in all, we are getting somewhere.

Great.

 > Kjetil B. Thomassen
 > mailto:thomassk@oslo.geco-prakla.slb.com

Cheers Scott

-- 
Scott Stevens, Network Services Group, Computer Centre, Imperial College
"It was a slow day, and the sun was beating,
 On the soldiers by the side of the road,
 There was a bright light, shattering of shop windows,
 The bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio."      - Paul Simon