> >> Then I type "fsck_ffs" and hit return.  It prints out on the screen:
> >> 
> >> ** /dev/rsd0a
> >> BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
> >> /dev/rsd0a: NOT LABELED AS A BSD FILE SYSTEM (unknown)
> >> 
> >> Now, my question:  What the hell does this mean?
> >
> >You have a problem. How did you format this drive? You are actually
> >booting off of sd0, aren't you? Not say sd1? I think one version of the
> >installer makes /etc/fstab wrong, so even though you want to use
> >sd1X or sd2X, fstab says sd0a. :-(
> 
> I formatted the drive using FWB's Hard Disk Toolkit, setting it up as a 
> A/UX 2.0 disk.  I don't think the formatting is the problem though, since 
> I did at one time have NetBSD up and running on it.

Formatting is not the problem, rather take a look at what Bill said after 
that ;-) (more on this below)
 
> I think what I need to do is go back and work through the changes I made, 
> one at a time.  In this one installation I:
> 
> 1. switched from Installer 1.1 to 1.1c
> 2. switched from Booter 1.9.4 to Booter 1.9.5 (of which I think there are 
> actually two versions?)
> 3. booted using a Booter that sits on my Mac's hard drive rather than a 
> Booter that sits on a minimal Mac partition on the NetBSD-formatted 
> drive, 
> 4. used a newer version of mkfs, and 
> 5. used the installer to move zsh-3.0.2 onto the NetBSD root and user 
> partition.

No, don't worry, all of this should work just fine (with one exception, 
i.e. that the installer seems to do what it wants when it creates and 
/etc/fstab file)

> So, I guess it should come as no surprise after a "witch's brew" of 
> changes such as this that I would have problems.  First step I think will 
> be to boot using the older Booter that is installed on the minimal Mac 
> partition.  If that doesn't work, I will re-install the NetBSD package 
> using Installer 1.1 (not 1.1c).

This is really not necessary.  All you need to do is to use the Installer 
to cpout the /etc/fstab file and fix it using something like BBEdit, then 
copy it back in with the installer.  Basically, the /etc/fstab file 
specifies that your NetBSD drive is on sd0.  However, this is your 
internal drive.  From your comments above, your NetBSD drive is external 
(or at least not your MacOS boot volume).  If you watch the NetBSD boot 
process, it will give a whole bunch of lines like:

sd0: ......blah blah some drive type here
sd1: .....some other drive type here
etc....

The line which matches your NetBSD drive is the one you need to have 
listed in your /etc/fstab file.  When you do an 'fsck' on the command 
line, the fsck program checks /etc/fstab for partitions it needs to 
check.  So it tries to check your internal hard drive, which of course is 
not a NetBSD drive.  You could also simply have done a:

fsck /dev/sd1a

and forced it to do only the partition you want.  However, until you fix 
/etc/fstab, it'll have a hard time going multi-user.

I hope this clears things up a little.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                      ender@is.rice.edu
Consultant                                        Rice University
Information Technology Services                       Houston, TX