Subject: disklabel, ISA, >16M RAM
To: None <tech-install@NetBSD.ORG>
From: James C. Cotillier III <jcc@skat.usc.edu>
List: tech-install
Date: 01/24/1997 01:11:21
Hello,

Apologies if this is in the FAQ (I can't reach the neonramp.com Web
server at the moment).  Installing 1.2 on a 32Meg IBM PS/1 (ISA only),
installing on all of a 540Meg SCSI drive on an Adaptec AHA1542C.

Install goes smoothly until the script first invokes disklabel.  disklabel
says:

aha0: DMA beyond end of ISA

and leaves the system hung in an "enabled wait" (keyboard works but no
shell prompt, commands are not interpreted or executed).  Sometimes a
number of control-c's gets the root prompt (#) back, and a halt will
gracefully shut the system down; other times, it's white button only.

I have FreeBSD-current on a slice of another SCSI drive, booted that
and tried using its fdisk to pre-prepare the NetBSD install drive with
the 0xa5 partition type in the MBR for the NetBSD slice - that made no
difference - same symptom set exactly.

I think I had this problem two years ago when I first tried installing
FreeBSD 1.1.5 or whatever they were then, and it revolved around
having RAM over the 16M DMA limit for ISA.  The real solution was to
generate bounce buffers in the kernel to handle the high RAM, but you
have to get beyond the Catch 22 to build a kernel. :(

Is there an alternate install kernel that has bounce buffers genned,
or am I barking up the wrong install tree? :O

Thanks in advance,
-JC