> fdisk won't let me add the dos partition: when I specify where the dos
> partition should be, fdisk thinks that these locations are off the
> disk, and resets the values so that they live inside the 1024
> cynlinder boundary.
> 
> I guess that since the partition I want to add is past the first 1024
> cylinders, no go.

That really shouldn't be a problem.
Which version of fdisk are you running? (objdump -j .ident -s /sbin/fdisk)
What does sysctl machdep.diskinfo report?
What is the output of 'fdisk wd0'?

> Now that I started looking at this stuff, I noticed that the disklabel
> and fdisk information does not appear to match, either.  Not only does
> fdisk not allow me to add the dos partition, but it is also convinced
> that the netbsd partition is partially off the disk.

The disklabel and fdisk are largely independant of each other.
The disklabel is stored at the beginning of the netbsd fdisk partition,
but otherwise is independant of it.
fdisk doesn't depend on the contents of the disklabel in any way.

>   "Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks? [n]"
> 
> But I've never had to do this before however, so I'm wondering if I'm
> doing something simple wrong.  Thanks for any ideas.

It is very doubtful that any answers to that question will have any
effect except that they may make the disk unbootable.

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk