On Tue, 26 Dec 2000, Matthew Theobalds wrote:
> This certainly seems to be the problem: No, it doesn't seem to recognise the
> drive. "Error: Couldn't mount Root filesystem sd0" or words to that effect.
> Yes, I have set all the options correctly and formatted all the drives
> correctly: I got no errors installing and did a Build Devices after the
> install as per ewinkler's guide.

So no mention of sd0 or anything like that even earlier in the boot
messages? How about ncrscsi0 or sbc0? (Which kernel, and which version
of NetBSD are you using anyway? The GENERIC NetBSD 1.5 from kern.tgz?)
It seems like if you're getting error 79, that means it did recognize
your hard drive, but it's not happy with the partitioning on it. I don't
know if this is convenient or possible for you to do, but it'd be
helpful if you could post a copy of the entire boot messages (use serial
boot echo, and a null modem cable hooked up to another machine).

Also, you mention that after getting the error, it asks for a root
device... something like "root device (default sd0a):"? What do you get
if you type "?" at that prompt?