Subject: Re: Problems booting from SCSI disk
To: None <dom@inta.net>
From: Frank van der Linden <frank@wins.uva.nl>
List: port-i386
Date: 01/27/1998 14:42:13
On Tue, Jan 27, 1998 at 01:14:24PM +0000, Dominic J Hulewicz wrote:
>   pfdisk> # Partition table on device: 0
>   geometry 1021 64 32 (cyls heads sectors)
>   #  ID  First(cyl)  Last(cyl)  Name  # start, length (sectors)
>   1   0      0          0       empty # 0, 0
>   2   0      0          0       empty # 0, 0
>   3   0      0          0       empty # 0, 0
>   4 165      0       1007       unkno # 63, 2064321
>   # note: first(4): phys=(0,1,1) logical=(0,1,32)
>   # note:  last(4): phys=(1023,31,63) logical=(1007,63,32)
>   # note: last(4): phys=(1023,31,63) should be (1023,63,32)
>   active: 4

And you said that NetBSD's fdisk reports:

	cylinders=1037 heads=32 sectors/track=63 

There's the problem then. The install messes up the geometry, which
also seems to result in the partition starting at the very start of
the disk, not one track above that.

The best thing you could do is to reinstall, and to specify the
cyl: 1021, heads: 64, sectors: 32 geometry explicitly yourself.
I.e. when sysinst asks if the geometry is OK, choose 'no', and
enter the 1021,64,32 values. After that it should be ok.

Generally, you should be sure before an installation what your BIOS
reports as disk geometry; if the disk is still empty, the install
program has trouble determining what the BIOS is using. There is,
unfortunately, no bullet-proof method of matching "BIOS harddisk N"
with "NetBSD device X". I guess what could be done is have sysinst
list all harddisks found by the BIOS and list their geometries, so
that the user can pick the right one.

- Frank