Hi David:

> I have an existing Windoze installation. I have downloaded most of NetBSD
> 1.5.1 to my windows system (weird but all the ftp sites I went to had empty
> xfonts, man, and misc folders).

Weird.  Just to make sure you got the right files, here's what I did.

Create directory tree on one of my FAT drives:
1.5.1/
   i386/
      binary/
         sets/
      installation/
         floppy
      utilities/


Go to ftp://netbsd.stevens-tech.edu/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5.1/i386/ and
download the following files:
  binary/sets/*
  installation/floppy/boot1.fs 
  installation/floppy/boot2.fs
  utilities/rawrite32.zip

Putting each in their respective location on my hard drive.



> I used MS fdisk to partition my drive into 3 partitions but I left empty
> space and used NetBSD boot program to partition the fourth as NetBSD. I
> also
> used sysinst to change one of the partitions to MSDOS. It recognises all
> partitions and shows their filesystem and size correctly.

Are you *sure* you properly set up your disklabel via sysinst?  To determine
the sector offsets and sizes of my partitions I used partinfo.exe, a simple
DOS program.  I had it as part of PartitionMagic.  It can be downloaded from:
  http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/oberon/System3/Native/Contrib/?N=D
  http://www.roko.goe.net/ftp/utilities/windows/Datenrettung/partinfo.exe
  http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/PARTINFO.ZIP
  http://www.tdsoft.net/download/partinfo.exe

Once you have it, run it:
  partinfo > partitions.txt
then read the numbers in partitions.txt

Here's what my output looked like:

=====================================================================

Disk 0:  4865 Cylinders, 255 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track.

The BIOS supports INT 13h extensions for this drive.

========================== Partition Tables =========================

Partition        -----Begin----    ------End-----     Start       Num

Sector    # Boot  Cyl Head Sect FS  Cyl Head Sect      Sect     Sects

--------- - ---- ---- ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ---- --------- ---------

        0 0 80      0    1    1 06  102  254   63        63   1654632  +

        0 1 00    103    0    1 0F 1023  254   63   1654695  31551660  @

Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

  Actual values are:

        0 1 00    103    0    1 0F 2066  254   63   1654695  31551660  @@


[ ...other partitions snipped for clarity... ]

 16820055 1 00   1557    0    1 05 2066  254   63  25013205   8193150  ^

 25013205 0 00   1023    1    1 0B 1023  254   63  25013268   8193087  *
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

  Actual values are:

 25013205 0 00   1557    1    1 0B 2066  254   63  25013268   8193087  **

=====================================================================


+   Win 95 partition
@   Extended Partition showing CHS placeholders
@@  Extended Partition showing "real" CHS numbers
^   Extended Partition Boot Record for the Logical Drive in question
*   Data segment of the Logical Drive showing CHS placeholders
**  Data segment of the Logical Drive showing "real" CHS numbers

Use the "Start Sect" and "Num Sects" from * or ** when setting up your
disklabels.


When I got to the disklabel part of sysinst, here's what I typed in:

h: Change h
  FS Kind      MSDOS
  Offset       25013268
  Size         8193087
  [Use End as checksum: 33206354]
  Mount Point  /bdown


Now you're ready to access the set files on this drive later on in sysinst.


> I still can't get sysinst to locate them.
> When I get to locating my kern, etc. I have 2 options, install from an
> 'unmounted fs' or 'local directory'.
> Do you know what the correct syntax is for completing this step? I
> presume I am correct in choosing unmounted fs.

When sysinst says:

"Your disk is now ready for installing the kernel and the distribution
sets...
Select medium"

Here's what I put in:

e: Unmounted fs
  a: device
     wd0h
  b: filesystem
     msdos
  c: directory
     1.5.1/i386/binary/sets
  d: continue


Should run fine from here...  If not, post the outputs from disklabel and
partinfo.exe.

Good luck,

--Dan

PS:  Ditch the HTML email.  Set your Outlook preferences to send only plain
ASCII text.

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