Robert Nordier wrote: > > Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is > not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and > FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions > are defined. > > Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD > partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably > you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, > after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. > > The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v > (but it should be from the old "boot:" prompt, not from loader(8) > in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for "BIOS Geometries" > information.
Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? -- Dr Graham Wheeler E-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax: +27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security Specialists WWW: http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
