install/42866: NetBSD 5.0.2 won't install on 1.5 TB hard drive

[randolf+netbsd.org%inter-corporate.com@localhost]

>Number:         42866
>Category:       install
>Synopsis:       NetBSD 5.0.2 won't install on 1.5 TB hard drive
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       critical
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    install-manager
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Feb 22 17:45:04 +0000 2010
>Originator:     Randolf Richardson
>Release:        5.0.2
>Organization:
Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.
>Environment:
[Not installed yet.  This is the i386 or amd64 version from downloadable ISO 
files burned onto bootable CD-ROM for with sysinst.]
>Description:
Here is some information that appears in sysinst during the installation 
process, which will hopefully be helpful to whoever is looking into this 
problem.  I suspect it has to do with NetBSD not being able to address the 
larger drives due to some arbitrary limit for the number of sectors or 
something internally.  Even disklabel seems to have difficulty with these large 
drives.

BIOS information about drive (note that the "GB" column is correct):
BIOS #:  0x80
Cylinders:  1023
Heads:  81
Sectors:  63
Total sectors:  2930277168
GB:  1500

Selected "Use entire disk" (as usual).

Update boot code:  Yes

For the disklabel prompt, where I can choose to set NetBSD partition sizes or 
use existing sizes, the list paragraph before the menu options indicates "The 
NetBSD part of your disk is -666352 Megabytes."  Are we using a signed integer 
to represent disk size when we really should be using an unsigned integer?  I 
selected "Set sizes..."

The root ("/") partition shows up as "210(4294300944" MBs (that's right, 
there's a leading parenthesis there).  Cylinders is 427, and Sectors is 430416.

I don't have an option to continue at this point, and I'm forced to change the 
partition size, so if I set it to "666562 MBs" (slightly less than 50% of the 
total drive capacity), then I get Cylinders and Sectors mashed together as the 
number "13542851365119280" but now I can "Accept partition sizes" (free space 
is indicated as "764237 MB, 13 free partitions").  I choose "Accept..."

Partitions appear as (Start, End, Size, FS Type, ...):
a: 0 666561 666562 FFSv1 Yes Yes /
b: 0 0 0 unused
c: 0 1430798 1430799 NetBSD partition
d: 0 1430798 1430799 Whole disk
e: 0 0 0 unused

If I change FFSv1 to FFSv2, the errors are the same.  I choose "Partition sizes 
ok..." and go along with the default disk name on the next screen, then proceed 
with the installation.

The following disklabel command fails:
disklabel -w -r -f /tmp/disktab wd0 'ST31500341AS   '
wd0: no raw partition and partition table is full
disklabel: warning, partition c: size 0, but offset 63

I'm unable to install NetBSD on systems with 1.5 TB hard drives.  I can install 
other Operating Systems without these issues.  I consider this to be a critical 
issue because the installation is failing.

Thanks in advance.

>How-To-Repeat:
Attempt to install NetBSD 5.0.2 (or earlier), i386 or amd64 from ISO (burned 
onto bootable CD-ROM), onto a system with a 1.5 TB SATA hard drive.

I'm using Intel motherboards and the on-board controllers.  Using smaller 
drives (e.g., 1 TB or 500 GB) resolves the problem, but is not an acceptable 
work-around because the larger drives are common now.

>Fix:
Unknown.