Subject: Re: "mbrlabel" weirdness - bug or feature?
To: Alec Muffett <alecm@crypticide.com>
From: Quentin Garnier <cube@cubidou.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 02/18/2005 18:01:21
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On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 03:01:13PM +0000, Alec Muffett wrote:
[...]
> >But does the BIOS care whether there is something partitioned at that=20
> >place?
>=20
> Um, no.  It doesn't.
>=20
> >If not then just make sure you don't have any partition over it in=20
> >your disklabel.
>=20
> Um, yes, and to do that requires me to understand how to *achieve*=20
> that, specifically it requires me to understand the apparent disjoint=20
> between the cylinder numbers reported by fdisk from the perspective of=20
> the BIOS, and the cylinder numbers from the perspective of NetBSD.

fdisk tells you the BIOS geometry of the disk.  disklabel works in
512-byte sectors.  You'll have some math to do, but not the hard kind.

> What I think I am learning from this thread is that NetBSD is not very=20
> happy with talking to NetBSD (any?) partitions that exist outside the=20
> scope of its main partition.

NetBSD doesn't deal with several NetBSD partitions because, I guess,
there can only be one disklabel stored on the disk.

NetBSD has a unified way (across archs) to use disks, through a
disklabel.  A few archs have other other partitions scheme that are
left on top of NetBSD's disklabel.

--=20
Quentin Garnier - cube@cubidou.net - cube@NetBSD.org
"When I find the controls, I'll go where I like, I'll know where I want
to be, but maybe for now I'll stay right here on a silent sea."
KT Tunstall, Silent Sea, Eye to the Telescope, 2004.

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