Okay, this was the wrong geometry thing.
When I used the BIOS's auto-detect features, it would set the geometry
and the OS would read it wrong.  If I told it to SKIP in the detect
screen, and then set it to AUTO 0 0 0 0 0 0 LBA, it worked from the
POST detection!  (yay)

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 18:43:41 -0400, matthew sporleder
<msporleder@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm working on reinstalling and trying two paths:
> The geometry of my disk is (I think) being wrongly reported to the
> netbsd installer.
> And possibly using the mbr boot loader from /usr/mdec, instead of the
> default one that's installed.
> 
> Why linux is able to handle this and bsd isn't is beyond me.  :)
> 
> _Matt
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 22:39:48 +0100, David Laight <david@l8s.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 07, 2004 at 11:47:50PM -0400, matthew sporleder wrote:
> > > As a supplimental to this:
> > > Disk /dev/hda: 45.0 GB, 45020602368 bytes
> > > 240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5815 cylinders, total 87930864 sectors
> > > Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> > >
> > >    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> > > /dev/hda1   *        63  83976479  41988208+  a9  NetBSD
> > > /dev/hda2      83976480  84188159    105840   83  Linux
> > > /dev/hda3      84188160  87045839   1428840   83  Linux
> > > /dev/hda4      87045840  87922799    438480    f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
> > > /dev/hda5      87045903  87922799    438448+  82  Linux swap
> > >
> > > I am completely unable to boot into NetBSD.
> > > I'd like to try booting with grub, as the netbsd bootloader just gives
> > > me error 3's.
> > > Should this work as a grub entry?
> > >
> > >  title NetBSD
> > >          rootnoverify (hd0,0)
> > >          chainloader +1
> >
> > If the NetBSD boot loader is giving 'error 3' it is unlikely that grub
> > will do any better!
> >
> > Error 3 is reported when the first sector of the mbr partition (sector
> > 63 here) doesn't contain boot code.  This is usually added by installboot
> > but it (probably) relies on the root filesystem being at the start of
> > that partition.
> >
> > If you boot from the install CD it ought to be possible to sort things out.
> >
> >         David
> >
> > --
> > David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk
> >
> 
> 
> --
> _Matt
> 


-- 
_Matt