Hi all!

I just tryed to install NetBSD 1.5 beside an existing Win2k installation on
my Dell Inspiron 4000 on a 20 GB HD.
I tried to install several times with several different configs of
partitions (changed with Partition Magic 6.0), but must say that I am a bit
condused about the disk geometry stuff, so I would like to ask for help
here. At least another pointer to information on the web would be very nice.

First some hardware infos for you and then the things I tried.

Hardware infos:
physical geometry according to Partition Magic 6.0:
2.432 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors

partition infos accorsing to Partition Magic 6.0:
C: WINDOWS2000 (NTFS) [1]
  1st physical sec: 63 (cyl 0, head 0, sec 1)
   last physical sec: 10.233.404 (cyl 636, head 254, sec 63)
UNUSED [2]
  1st physical sec: 10.233.405 (cyl 637, head 0, sec 1)
   last physical sec: 30.796.604 (cyl 1.916, head 254, sec 63)
D: HOME (NTFS) [3]
  1st physical sec: 30.796.668 (cyl 1.917, head 0, sec 1)
   last physical sec: 36.949.499 (cyl 2.299, head 254, sec 63)
E: FAT (FAT) [3]
  1st physical sec: 36.949.563 (cyl 2.300, head 1, sec 1)
   last physical sec: 39.070.079 (cyl 2.431, head 254, sec 63)

[1] My primary partition with C:
[2] Unused, want to install NetBSD here
[3] Extended partition with D: & E:

physical geomerty according to pfdisk:
-----8<-----
pfdisk> list
# Partition table on device 0
geometry 1023 255 63 (cyl heads sectors)
#  ID first(cyl) last(cyl) Name # start,          length(sectors)
1  7   0           636       OS/2  # 63             10233342
2  15 1023     2431     unkno # 30796605 8273475
# note: first(2): phys=(1023,0,1) logical=(1917,0,1)
# note: last(2): phys=(1023,254,63) logical=(2431,254,63)
3   0   0          0           empty # 0               0
4   0   0          0           empty # 0               0
-----8<-----

This means that my primary partition is at the beginning of the HD (approx.
5GB) and the extended partition is at the end of the HD (approx. 3+1GB). The
space in between is unused. I moved the extended partition to the end
because of the physical 1.024 cylinder boundary of the BIOS. This leads now
to the first question:

Q1:
Was that necessary to be able to boot NetBSD (see also Q2)?

Now I wanted to install NetBSD using the LAPTOP kernel to the Unused slice
of my HD. The HD will be detected like pfdisk shows above (1023 255 63),
which means according to NetBSD/i386 FAQ that the boot partition has to be
within the first 8GB on my disk. This leads to more questions:

Q2:
Is it only possible to use the HD from cylinder 637 up to cylinder 1023 in
my configuration?
(This actually should give me some 3GB of space. I have the impression that
only this is possible because I was not able to enter the given sector data
by Partition Magic while partitioning the disk. See pfdisk above.)

Q3a:
If Q2=yes, can I mount the missing part of the unused slice (above 1024 to
1916) afterwards when NetBSD is installed and running?
(This already is probably a FAQ question ;)
Q3b:
If Q2=no, what now?

Q4:
Does the 540 MB limit mentioned in the FAQ affect my problem?
(This actually would be impossible within my installation right now, because
of that 5GB Win2k partition, so I assume I should ignore this.)

And two more questions for now:

Q5:
Would it be much simpler if I would generate another primary partition with
that unused slice to install NetBSD on?

Q6:
A SuSE Linux 7.1 installed pretty nice on my Laptop using the Unused slice
of the HD. Is something similar thought for NetBSD?

Any helpful information is greatly appreciated.

BTW: mail-index.netbsd.org seems to have a script error, I was not able to
search in the list archive for some additionally informations. Manuel or
other readers more involved in administrating please forward this
information to the appropiate person. (Send-pr thing?)


MfG, Best regards, Tchau!
Bernd
--
E-Mail: BeLi@aventa.de & BeLi@ScoutNet.de