On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:18:49 -0500  Jeff Webb wrote:

> I'm another newbie to NetBSD, but I hope some of you can spare the time
> to help me out.  I have access to several old DECstations that I'd like
> to put to good use.  I have a choice of several flavors: 5000/200
> 5000/25 3100S 3100.
> 
> I set up BOOTP and TFTP on my Linux box and got one of the 5000/200's
> to boot the netbsd.ecoff kernel.  The DECsystem mounted the root
> filesystem (/installation/netboot/diskimage.tgz) successfully via NFS.
> At the prompt I was able to run sysinst and start the installation
> process.  Everything goes fine until I try to partition and format the
> disk.

There's been some complaints recently about the SCSI driver on
5000/200's.  One thing would be to try the 5000/25, which uses a
different SCSI driver.  Another would be to try a few commands at the
shell prompt (just exit sysinst from the main menu) to see how well you
can see the disk.  You say you can edit the disklabel.  Try making a
disklabel that looks something like this:

	# /dev/rrz0c:
	type: SCSI
	disk: RZ28M
	label: NetBSD
	flags:
	bytes/sector: 512
	sectors/track: 84
	tracks/cylinder: 16
	sectors/cylinder: 1344
	cylinders: 3045
	total sectors: 4110480
	rpm: 3600
	interleave: 1
	trackskew: 0
	cylinderskew: 0
	headswitch: 0           # milliseconds
	track-to-track seek: 0  # milliseconds
	drivedata: 0 

	8 partitions:
	#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
	  a:   818496        0     4.2BSD     1024  8192    32   # (Cyl.    0 - 608)
	  b:   409920   818496       swap                        # (Cyl.  609 - 913)
	  c:  4110480        0     4.2BSD     1024     0     0   # (Cyl.    0 - 3058*)
	  d:   204288  1228416     4.2BSD     1024  8192    32   # (Cyl.  914 - 1065)
	  e:  2677776  1432704     4.2BSD     1024  8192    32   # (Cyl. 1066 - 3058*)

Then try newfs'ing and mounting the first partition:

	newfs /dev/rrz0a
	mount /dev/rz0a /mnt
	df

df should then show an empty filesystem.

The output of the boot messages (especially the first few lines after
"Beginning old-style SCSI device autoconfiguration") and the disklabel
command will be useful if you are still having problems.

Simon.