On Mon, 25 Nov 1996 22:02:57 -0800, Michael D. Melez wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I'm having problems installing NetBSD 1.2 i386.  After specifying my hard
>drive configuration information and answering "yes" to the question asking
>me if I want to go past the "point of no return", I get a series of errors,
>most of which look like the following:
>
>sd0(ncr0:0:0): command aborted, data = 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
>00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

I've seen something like this when MS-DOS mounting a Zip disk connected
to my Adaptec 2940.  Actually it's in boot up that these errors show up,
but it still works.  I think it's trying synchronous transfer and failing, so it
goes to asynchronous or something.  In any case it mounts just fine.  It
also gives me the message "using fictitious geometry".  The geometry
can't be that wrong, though, because it works.

>I also get errors from the filesystem creation and mounting utilities
>(mostly saying they can't mount or create various filesystems).  The upshot
>is that my filesystems aren't created or mounted.  As far as I can tell
>I've done everything in accordance with the installation notes and my
>hardware is compatible (I'm using an NCR 8251S (53c825) PCI to SCSI host
>adapter).
>
>The only anomaly I know of is that Linux fdisk (from a bootable floppy) and
>various DOS utilities (from my DOS partition on that drive) tell me I have
>1008 cylinders, 66 tracks/cylinder, and 63 sectors/track on that drive.
>The boot messages when I boot with the NetBSD kernel-copy floppy, however,
>tell me I have 3703 cylinders, 9 tracks/cylinder, and 125 sectors/track on
>that drive.

Basic BIOS translation problem.  Blame backwards compatibility.

>The computer was initially set up with a DOS partition and three Linux
>partitions.  I deleted the Linux partitions and created a NetBSD partition
>using fdisk on the Linux bootable floppy.  I've tried installing NetBSD on
>that partition as well as on the whole disk using both the info I get from
>Linux fdisk/DOS utils and the info I get from the NetBSD boot messages, but
>all attempts result in the same set of errors.
>
>None of these attempts appear to have done anything to my hard drive; my
>DOS partition continues to work fine.  Here are the possibly relevant boot
>messages I get when booting from the kcoth12 kernel-copy floppy:
>
>ncr0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: NCR 53c825 Wide SCSI
>ncr0: interrupting at irc 10
>ncr0: restart (scsi reset).
>scsibus0 at ncr0
>sd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <HP, C3725S, 6039> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
>sd0: sd0(ncr0:0:0): FAST SCSI-2 100ns (10Mb/sec) offset 8.
>2047 MB, 3703 cyl, 9 head, 125 sec, 512 bytes/sec
>
>I've read the info in the FAQ regarding disk geometry translation, but I
>can't figure out how that might create the kinds of errors I'm receiving
>(nor how I can fix it if that's the problem).  Frankly, though, I don't
>understand the FAQ's explanation of this problem, so it's possible I'm
>missing something there.

Disk geometry is EXTREMELY tricky.  Get a copy of pfdisk and run
that.  Tell NetBSD the numbers for geometry that pfdisk gives you.  Write
down the partition information and set the partitions to type a5.  Whatever
geometry you get, multiply it out to make sure you have the right drive
size.