Thanks to all who wrote with advice on my install problems.  I've made
a little progress, but it's still elusive.  In particular, I can use
the install floppy and redirect it to sd0a:netbsd, and the
(newly-installed) system boots up fine.  I haven't been able to boot
directly from the hard drive.

Several people asked if I'd changed the boot drive in my SCSI
controller's BIOS.  I've poked around in the BIOS looking for that
parameter, but I haven't found it.  I suspect it's booting the lowest
SCSI ID it finds on the chain.  My working, booting NetBSD-1.3 disk is
SCSI ID 3, and I'm setting the new NetBSD-1.4 disk to either ID 2
(when I want to try to boot it or install it) or ID 5 (when I want to
run my old system).  Whenever the ID of the new disk is lower than the
old disk's, I get "No operating system" at boot, so I think the
controller's trying that disk.

After booting the new system by using the install floppy as an
intermediate step, I tried re-running installboot:

  /usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym /dev/rsd0a

but that didn't work either.

Manuel Bouyer asked:

> When you did the installation, which drive was defined as the
> bootable one, The old or the new ? It's quite possible that sysinst
> used the wrong geometry when the MBR and DOS partition table got
> installed (i.e. using the old disk's BIOS geometry).

I've been changing the SCSI ID to drop the new drive to a lower target
number.  It's being picked up as sd0 when I do this, and the hints in
the custom disk geometry section of the install are picking up the new
drive's geometry.

Thilo Manske asked for some added information.  I am planning on using
the entire new disk for NetBSD.  My BIOS dates are all back in 1996 or
earlier.  Here's the output from fdisk, disklabel, and dmesg when I
boot NetBSD 1.4 on the new drive with the install floppy:

--(script output)--
# fdisk sd0
NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
cylinders: 9006 heads: 8 sectors/track: 246 (1968 sectors/cylinder)

BIOS disk geometry:
cylinders: 1023 heads: 255 sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder)

Partition table:
0: <UNUSED>
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
    start 246, size 17723562 (8654 MB), flag 0x80
	beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
	end: cylinder 1023, head 255, sector 63
# disklabel sd0
# /dev/rsd0d:
type: unknown
disk: mydisk
label: 
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 246
tracks/cylinder: 8
sectors/cylinder: 1968
cylinders: 9006
total sectors: 17783240
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0		# milliseconds
track-to-track seek: 0	# milliseconds
drivedata: 0 

8 partitions:
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:   308730      246     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.    0*- 156)
  b:   527424   308976       swap                        # (Cyl.  157 - 424)
  c: 17782994      246     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0*- 9036*)
  d: 17783240        0     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 9036*)
  e: 16946840   836400     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.  425 - 9036*)
# dmesg
NetBSD 1.4 (GENERIC) #0: Fri May  7 12:27:31 PDT 1999
    perry@cynic.cynic.net:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: family 5 model 2 step c
cpu0: Intel Pentium (P54C) (586-class)
real mem  = 66715648
avail mem = 58363904
using 840 buffers containing 3440640 bytes of memory
mainbus0 (root)
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
pci0: i/o enabled, memory enabled
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0
pchb0: Intel 82437VX System Controller (TVX) (rev. 0x01)
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0
pcib0: Intel 82371SB PCI-to-ISA Bridge (PIIX3) (rev. 0x01)
pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1: Intel 82371SB IDE Interface (PIIX3)
pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
pciide0: primary channel wired to compatibility mode
pciide0: disabling primary channel (no drives)
pciide0: secondary channel wired to compatibility mode
pciide0: disabling secondary channel (no drives)
vga1 at pci0 dev 8 function 0: S3 86C968-0 ("Vision968") (rev. 0x00)
wsdisplay0 at vga1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
ex0 at pci0 dev 9 function 0: 3Com 3c905-TX 10/100 Ethernet
ex0: interrupting at irq 10
ex0: MAC address 00:60:97:84:ce:a4
nsphy0 at ex0 phy 24: DP83840 10/100 media interface, rev. 1
nsphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
ahc1 at pci0 dev 10 function 0
ahc1: interrupting at irq 9
ahc1: aic7870 Single Channel, SCSI Id=7, 16 SCBs
scsibus0 at ahc1 channel 0: 8 targets, 8 luns per target
ahc1: target 2 synchronous at 10.0MHz, offset = 0xf
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 2 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST39140N, 1498> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd0: 8683MB, 9006 cyl, 8 head, 246 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 17783240 sectors
ahc1: target 3 synchronous at 10.0MHz, offset = 0xf
sd1 at scsibus0 targ 3 lun 0: <CONNER, CFP2105S  2.14GB, 2D4D> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd1: 2048MB, 3940 cyl, 10 head, 106 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4194304 sectors
ahc1: target 4 synchronous at 10.0MHz, offset = 0xf
sd2 at scsibus0 targ 4 lun 0: <iomega, jaz 1GB, H.72> SCSI2 0/direct removable
sd2: 1021MB, 1021 cyl, 64 head, 32 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2091050 sectors
ahc1: target 6 synchronous at 5.0MHz, offset = 0xf
cd0 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 0: <MATSHITA, CD-ROM CR-504-J, SS17> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
isa0 at pcib0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378-0x37b irq 7
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x64
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard
opmsprobe: command error
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
isapnp0 at isa0 port 0x279: ISA Plug 'n Play device support
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
isapnp0: no ISA Plug 'n Play devices found
biomask 240 netmask 640 ttymask 6c2
wscons: wskbd0 glued to wsdisplay0 (console)
WARNING: old BSD partition ID!
boot device: sd0
root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
root file system type: ffs
--(script output)--

That "WARNING: old BSD partition ID!" message makes me wonder.

For the time being, I'll probably just boot with the floppy and try
migrating files from the NetBSD-1.3 disk over to the new drive.

Thanks again for the help.

Keith Browne
tuxedo@icomm.ca