Brad,

I don't think this is a problem with bad blocks on your hard drive.  I 
suspect you have a Quantum Fireball.  The only fix that worked for me was 
to move the root&user partition to the front of the drive.  I think my 
swap is there, too.  Not sure if it needs to be or not.  We just ended a 
thread on this error yesterday.  If I recall correctly, Colin said this 
problem is covered in the FAQ.  I don't think anyone really knows what 
causes this problem--but these Quantum Fireballs are one of the drives 
that experience this problem.  If this list is archived somewhere--and I 
suspect it is--check in the last week or so.  One person posted a long 
explanation of what he did to work around it.  Some of the steps he took 
were probably unnecessary, but they couldn't hurt either.

				Good Luck
				Kevin

PS.  BTW, the problem you are experiencing does not have anything to do 
with a 1023 cylinder limit.  Everytime this thread pops up, someone 
recalls from long ago that there was a 1023 cylinder limit problem--that 
has long since been fixed.

PSS.  If my assumptions about your drive are so far correct, it has nothing 
to do with your FWB or APS, either.  I had the problem with silverlining, 
and IIRC the HD SC utility doesn't help either.

On Tue, 19 May 1998, Brad Ulreich wrote:

> I, too, appear to have bad bits of hardrive that are tripping me up.
> I'm trying to install NetBSD 1.3 on a Quadra 630 with 20MB ram. I
> repartitioned a 1 gig drive with the required swap partition [40MB] and
> root&user partition [290MB].
> 
> When I use Mkfs_1.45 to install base.tgz, I get this cryptic message
> about 80% near completion:
> 
> -r--r--r--     3/7         10274 Thu Jan 01 02:32 1998 ./usr/lkm/fdesc.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7         33763 Thu Jan 01 02:32 1998
> ./usr/lkm/if_ipl.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7          9360 Thu Jan 01 02:32 1998
> ./usr/lkm/kernfs.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7          7812 Thu Jan 01 02:33 1998 ./usr/lkm/mfs.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7         41918 Thu Jan 01 02:33 1998
> ./usr/lkm/msdosfs.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7          7143 Thu Jan 01 02:32 1998
> ./usr/lkm/nullfs.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7          8392 Thu Jan 01 02:32 1998
> ./usr/lkm/portal.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7         14286 Thu Jan 01 02:33 1998
> ./usr/lkm/procfs.o
> -r--r--r--     3/7          7972 Thu Jan 01 02:33 1998
> ./usr/lkm/umapfs.o
> drwxr-xr-x     0/0             0 Wed Dec 31 23:47 1997 ./usr/local
> mkdir : File exists
> drwxr-xr-x     0/0             0 Wed Dec 31 23:47 1997 ./usr/local/bin
> mkdir : File exists
> drwxr-xr-x     0/0             0 Wed Dec 31 23:47 1997 ./usr/local/lib
> mkdir : File exists
> drwxr-xr-x     0/0             0 Wed Dec 31 23:47 1997
> ./usr/local/libdata
> Error on SCSIRead(), # 5
> Error on SCSIWrite(), # 5
> Error on SCSIRead(), # 5
> Error on SCSIRead(), # 5
> Error on SCSIWrite(), # 5
> Error on SCSIRead(), # 5
> pos = 0, i = 27, fs = /
> alloccgblk: can't find blk in cyl
> 
> Assuming that it is a bad sector problem, my questions are the same as
> the previous chap's with bad blocks:
> Can Mkfs fix it? 
> Can this be fixed without reformating the entire drive? 
> Is there a Mac disk utility that can see the BSD partitions and format
> them? FWB and APS can't: At least not in my meager hands...
> [I used FWB HDT and did a Quick Format instead of a Low Level, in order
> to save time]
> 
> Thanks...
>