Michael wrote:
> On 10/11/09, Fred Crowson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 10/11/09, Michael <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> I think I found the source of several problems on my hd.
>>> I have an 40 gig hd (WDC WD400BB-75DEA0) that right now has:
>>> #1: primary partition with Windows 2kpro
>>> #2: extended partition with Windows D partition, PCLinuxOS, and extra
>>> ext2fs partitions for files
>>> #3. end of hd has my primary partition with OpenBSD 4.4
>>>
>>> OpenBSD and dos(partition magic) both show geometry of 4863,255,63
>>> linux shows geometry of 4865,255,63). Actual sectors (even printed on
>>> hd) is 78125000, but linux shows 78156225.

well, if Linux is not using those last two cylinders, don't sweat
it, it Just Doesn't Matter.  It only matters if you try to write
something where nothing is.

If I tell you the edge of the cliff is 100M. away, and someone else
tells you it is 102M. away, and you are pretty sure that ONE of us
is telling the truth, you can wander 100M minus your shoe size
safely.  The fact that we disagree doesn't mater, just don't go those
last 2M.  If OpenBSD is the more conservative report, and you have
OpenBSD at the end of the disk, you should have no issues.

>>> I don't know what to do to fix that.

don't even try.  you will just break things.

>>> The systems have been running ok, but I can't mount the PCLinuxOS
>>> partition from OpenBSD

is it ext2?  if not, that would be expected.

>>> and when trying to install 4.5 or 4.6, I get
>>> the ERR M problem.

totally unrelated.

Could your machine your machine have a BIOS limitation?  32G is a not
uncommon BIOS limitation, if you had your OpenBSD partition above that
point, a BIOS upgrade would be high on my list of things to check.

There were some motherboards shipping with buggy BIOSs with 32G issues
long after much larger disks were commonplace.

>>> I use Windows strictly for powerpoint files and I don't get on the
>>> internet with it, linux for flash and other junk like that. OpenBSD is
>>> my main running system.
>>>
>>> Any help greatly appreciated. I tried google, but didn't see anything
>>> to fix this.
>>
>> How are you getting the various OS to boot?
>>
>> A bit more info would be a help...
>>
>> Fred
>>
> Didn't think about that :)
> Was 2nd guessing what info would be needed (good info=OpenBSD vs bad
> info=linux).
> Right now, I'm using Air-Boot, but also have used grub.

Ick.  ok, what happens if you quit trying to be fancy, and just set
the active partition to OpenBSD and quit trying to multiboot it?
No Air-boot, no grub, just a standard MBR/PBR?
Considering how some of those multi-boot programs try to "help" you,
nothing surprises me when they break.

The PBR (what is giving you the "ERR M", see FAQ14) has a relatively
small set of things that can go wrong.  ERR M means that what it was
installed to load is not (currently) /boot.  This means either the
BIOS delivered something other than /boot, or you are running a PBR
that hasn't been updated since your last OpenBSD install (hint: some
multiboot systems will save a copy of your PBR for them to use,
instead of the one OpenBSD installs to boot the OS, and they rarely
know when to update it when you reinstall the system!) or the /boot
file got clobbered somehow.

Nick.

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