On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Bill Harris wrote:

> Philip Tait wrote:
> 
> > This does seem to be a remaining area where NetBSD/pmax is inferior to Ultrix,
> > which did not require disktab entries after 4.2, (1991?), IIRC.  It would be
> > nice to have an equivalent utility to rzdisk or scu, at least for formatting.
> > Has there been any work in these areas?
> >
> 
>  The 4.5 distribution I have still requires a valid disktab entry for the disk
> before you can write a label to it with chpt.
>

I'm not so sure. I was able to install 4.5 to a 699 MB - non 'DEC
standard' - size Quantum drive on my 3100 (now it is runing under NetBSD).
It's geometry wasn't on the disktab. I think, you should be able to write
a right disklabel from scratch using the kernel reported geometry. 
As I remember chpt can write disklabel from a protofile. 

Zoltan Zsido