Subject: Re: Booting sd0 (disk geometry versus bios geometry)
To: Todd Whitesel <toddpw@best.com>
From: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
List: port-i386
Date: 07/10/1998 11:11:15
Todd Whitesel <toddpw@best.com> writes:

>Not in my experience. sysinst (or perhaps disklabel, when it is writing
>bootstrap code) keeps wanting to blow away my DOS partition table and MBR.

>With 1.2 I was able to use Disk Manager to fix things, but with 1.3.2 I let
>it use the real disk geometry for NetBSD and it put that into the MBR, which

[snip]

Does this mean you told sysinst to use the "real" disk geometry for
the MBR/bios partition table, or when writing a BSD label to the start
of the NetBSD MBR-partition of the disk?

The first is, I think, pilot error.  The second would be a bug.  If
you still remember clearly, or have notes saying which you did, then
please send a PR.

(FWIW, my experience with 1.2 is that I could _never_ do an install
without getting the "erase entire disk?" message from /sbin/disklabel.
That was trying to install into a formerly-Linux bootable partition,
one of two factory-installed Linux partitions on a ~1gig SCSI on a
Buslogic controller.)