Subject: Install from FAT16 partition...
To: None <port-i386@netbsd.org>
From: Andy Ball <ball@cyberspace.org>
List: port-i386
Date: 02/01/2001 04:12:42
Hello!

One of my PCs has a single ATA fixed disk (primary and sole
device on its ATA channel).  The disk is a 13.7 Gb with the
following logical parameters...

  3309 Cylinders
   128 Heads
    63 Sectors per track

     ...there is already an operating system using two 'BIOS
partitions' arranged as follows...

  Start    End     Size  Use
  ~~~~~  ~~~~~  ~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~
      1    520   2.1 Gb  FAT16
    521    773   1.0 Gb  FAT16

...I hope to make a 1Gb NetBSD disklabel, like this...

  Start    End     Size  Use
  ~~~~~  ~~~~~  ~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~
    774   1015   1.0 Gb  NetBSD
   1016   3309   9.5 Gb  free

I can boot netbsd.INSTALL.gz using DOSBOOT.COM, which nicely
gets around the fact that this machine's primary diskette
drive is 5.25" 1.2Mb ;-)

Now, here's where it gets odd.  I have downloaded the binary
distribution sets (sans X at present) into a directory in
the primary FAT16 partition.  What do I tell sysinst when it
asks me what device the unmounted filesystem is on?

I have a vague recollection that I did this once (on another
machine, and an older version of NetBSD) by editing a text
file by hand... the trouble is I have no idea what the text
file was, or what I had to enter.  I've got install.html in
front of me, but can't seem to find anything relevent.  Any
ideas?

Regards,
  - Andy.