It sounds to me like you are confusing two things:

---- Unix disk slices (with disklabel a,b,c,d,e,f,g)

---- DOS Disk Partions (the 4 'disks' that DOS can use)

I believe that netBSD uses BOTH of these.

I used sysinst and made these choices:

- don't put netbsd on the WHOLE disk
- accept the values that fdisk tells your for your geometery
- enter values in MB - megabytes

- fdisk shows you the 4 DOS partitions (not the unix slices)

  - make the Zeroest one MSDOS - start it at MB 0 end at MB 10
  - make the First one NetBSD  - start it at MB10 end the last meg you have 
(subtracting the 10 for msdos on partition 0)

- save and exit fdisk

NOW sysinst will take the netBSD DOS partiton (1) that you gave it, and 
make the Unix disk slices (partitions) on it - i.e

a - root
b - swap

etc. etc....

- chose a custom disk layout (slicing)


- make the first partition a 20 meg swap (sysinst assigns it to B)
- make the second one a root (use ALL your diskspace, there is no reason to 
make a seperate root, usr, var etc.. these disks are too small....

Then sysinst will mkfs the slices, and let you choose your packages to 
install.

Upon reboot, allow wince to format its 10meg partition.


-andy diller

--On Friday, January 04, 2002 8:29 AM -0800 Steve K <skrul@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I've tried using sysinst to do the partitions -- after it writes the new
> partition table i reboot into CE to see if it likes what I did, and every
> time CE will reformat the entire CF card, not just the small MSDOS
> partition.
>
> I've even tried someone else's suggestion to "wipe" the entire CF card by
> creating a single NetBSD parition and then let CE reformat it.  I've even
> put the CF card in a laptop and formatted it.
>
> Does the order of the partitions matter?  For me, a is always the NetBSD
> parition, b is swap.. c and d I really don't understand -- the installer
> says they represent the "entire disk" and "netbsd" -- but why do they
> overlap the others?  And e is always the MSDOS parition.
>
> Is there something else I have to do to tell CE not to clobber the whole
> CF disk?
>
> thanks for the help,
> -steve
>
>
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