Paul Mauriks <pmauriks@ue.com.au> writes:

> I remember seeing something about this a while ago - I think it had to
> do with the geometry of the disk for the installation (when putting on a
> disklabel) - I think it was something like that the geometry that was
> detected was used - but if the information was altered in disklabel
> incorrectly the machine would not boot afterwards and would require a
> re-install. 
> 
The only catch as I recall it, is that the partitions must be on cylinder
boundaries:

root@spunky# disklabel sd0
# /dev/rsd0c:
type: SCSI
disk: spunkydisk
label: 
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 35
tracks/cylinder: 29
sectors/cylinder: 1015
cylinders: 4133
total sectors: 4194995
rpm: 7200
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # milliseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # milliseconds
drivedata: 0 

5 partitions:
#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:   131950        0      4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.    0 - 129)
  b:   196910   131950        swap                        # (Cyl.  130 - 323)
  c:  4194995        0      unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 4132)
  d:   196910   328860      4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.  324 - 517)
  e:  3669225   525770      4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.  518 - 4132)
root@spunky#

I've labeled it with both OpenBSD and NetBSD with the same result.

> I am using a DEC 5000/133 with OpenBSD so I don't know how this might
> relate to a Sparc machine or even if this is relevant to NetBSD - anyway
> you might try the mailing list archives at www.openbsd.org for some more
> info.
> 

Thanks much,
Paul
-- 
Paul F. Wells                      <paul@wellserv.com>