>I just tried to build a portable's 2-gig IDE drive using the
>previously unused IDE interface on my netbsd machine's motherboard.
>Problem 1: the IDE connector on the disk is quite a bit smaller than
>the IDE connector on the IDE cable.  Off to Fry's to get an adaptor
>($6.95 in the disk section).  Next problem the machine refuses to boot
>with the IDE hooked up.  It appears the BIOS only has settings for
>"floppy, hard disk, cdrom, network".  Even though the bios obviously
>just probed all the disks, even told me the manufacturers strings, it
>insists on booting from the only uninitialized disk in the box: wd0.

your bios has no idea that you may prefer to boot from scsi.  most
pc's will attempt to boot from ide in preference to scsi.

>Ok, stick in a floppy w. a bootstrap.  Type "Boot sd0a:netbsd".
>"netbsd not found" huh!  sh*t!  Ok.  Don't panic.  Lets try a boot
>from an older snapshot on sd1.  "Boot sd1a:netbsd" It boots and comes
>up with root on sd0a.  huh????  Play around with disklabel and fdisk
>making a label.  newfs all partitions. tar | tar copy all partitions.
>Hand edit /etc/hosts, ifconfig.ep0, gated.conf etc.  halt machine.
>install the disk into portable.  find the os-bs floppy.  Install
>os-bs.  boot.  "no operating system".  ARRG.  boot an install floppy.
>check out the ide disklabel.  Notice that it says "no label" and the
>fdisk label now says 32 reserved sectors instead of the 1 cylinder
>(1008 sectors).

you have missed the little note in the boot prompt

   >> NetBSD BOOT: 640/13808 k [1.28]
   use hd(1,a)/netbsd to boot sd0 when wd0 is also installed
   ...

>Yea.  Installing via cloning is sure easier. ;-)

yes.  it is.

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