Hope you folks have time for some questions from a NetBSD newbie here.
(I've got lots of experience with Linux and Solaris, but none with NetBSD.)
Like some others, I've been getting the "Cannot mount root, error = 79"
error after an otherwise successful installation of NetBSD 1.4.2.  I've
searched the archives of this list before posting, but haven't found any
solutions... so I'm hoping for a bit of help.  (Maybe this situation should
be added to the FAQ?)

    Mac IIvx with 20MB of RAM

    Internal Hard Drive @ SCSI ID 0 [sd0]
        One HFS partition
        80MB Quantum LP80S

    External Hard Drive @ SCSI ID 3 [sd1]
        One "NetBSD Root & Usr" partition
        One "NetBSD Swap" partition
        1041MB Fujitsu M1606S-512

    External CD-ROM @ SCSI ID 6 [cd0]

The system starts coming up, but says at the end:

    [....]
    boot device sd1
    root on sd1 dumps on sd1b
    sd1: no disk label -- NetBSD or Macintosh
    no file system for sd1 (dev 0x408)
    cannot mount root, error = 79

I'm sure that sd1a is the "root & usr" partition on the external drive, and
that sd1b is the swap partition out there as well.  I've seen something
about drives greater than 1GB causing problems, but only if they're specific
models (the Quantum Fireball, I believe), so that wouldn't apply here.

Also, similar to others, if I go back in with the Installer (version 1.1g;
I'm on a IIvx, after all), I can browse the directory tree, view files,
etc., so I know that things got installed where they belong.  I did the
"Make Devices" thing, and I did the "fstab force" thing.  I've confirmed
that there's a good /etc/fstab file.  In fact, here it is:

    /dev/sd1a   /       ffs      rw  1  1
    /dev/sd1b   none    swap     sw  0  0
    kern        /kern   kernfs   rw  0  0
    proc        /proc   procfs   rw  0  0

So what have I screwed up, and how can I fix it?
--
Brett L. Kessler, MCSE, MCP+I, MCP
Network and Systems Administrator
Algorithmics (U.S.), Inc., New York City
Email: kesslerb@algorithmics.com