Re: Disk Geometry

[Jerry McAllister]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 09:30:19PM +0100, ras bsd wrote:

> On 28/02/2008, Jerry McAllister <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 12:48:37AM +0100, ras bsd wrote:
> >
> >  > Hello list, this is my first post here.
> >  >
> >  > My problem is:
> >  >
> >  > I've installed the OS in my laptop in this order, Win XP and Debian
> >  > GNU/Linux. I'm trying to dive into the freebsd world from many years
> >  > in GNU/Linux. When i start the installation, when i have to enter in
> >  > the disk partition section an error appears saying that the disk
> >  > geometry is not valid and, anyway, I can not see the free disk space
> >  > that i left free after the other OS. My scope is keep working the
> >  > three OS.
> >  > How can i know the correct disk geometry? What am i doing wrong?
> >
> >
> > Well, I don't know why it does not see the free space unless you
> >  are looking in the wrong step.   There is often confusion by new
> >  users who come from the MS world because FreeBSD uses the term 'slice'
> >  and MS uses the term 'primary partition' to refer to the same thing.
> >  Due to ancient conventions in Bios and etc, there can be up to 4 slices
> >  (or primary partitions) on any physical disk.
> >
> >  Lunix has its own notion of extended partition as well.  Don't try
> >  to use that for FreeBSD.
> >
> >  FreeBSD must be installed/built in a free slice (primary partition by
> >  MS vocabulary).   It cannot be put in some extended partition space.
> >
> >  It is possible that you have already used up the 4 slices if the laptop
> >  manufacturer put a diagnostic utility slice on the drive.  That is
> >  normally hidden from MS, but will show up to FreeBSD.  If that is true,
> >  and you have used up the number of slices, then FreeBSD will not allow
> >  you to add any.  You will need to use a tool such as 'gparted'  or
> >  Partition Magic to shuffle things around and maybe squeeze the other
> >  slices and even nuke one.
> >
> >  Then FreeBSD uses the term 'partition' to refer to the subdivisions
> >  of a slice.  MS has some things called extended partitions which are
> >  not the same thing at all.
> >
> >  Anyway, the point where you first need to see the free space is in
> >  the step dealing with the slices which is done with fdisk(8).
> >
> >  As for the disk geometry issue, it normally does not matter.  That
> >  is the BIOS complaining.   You want to just let it go ahead and
> >  build things and try to ignore that error message.   Once it gets
> >  past loading the boot sector from a slice, FreeBSD no longer used
> >  the BIOS.   It handles everything itself.
> >
> >  There are exceptions to this response, but go ahead (once you get the
> >  free space issue figured out) and try it and see if it works.  It
> >  won't hurt anything and if it works, you're home free.  If it doesn't
> >  then you have some more exploring to do.I am not quite sure what
> >  because although I have frequently seen that message - almost all
> >  the time, I have never had it not work to just go ahead and slice,
> >  partition and build and ignore the message.  That is with both IDE(SATA)
> >  and SCSI(SAS).
> >
> >  So, your real problem is finding that elusive free slice space or
> >  freeing up a slice number to use for it.
> >
> >  Good luck,
> >
> >  jerry
> >
> >  > Mi laptop is Intel Core2 Duo and the Hard Disk is SATA 200 Gb Toshiba
> >  > MK2035GSS-(S1).
> >  >
> >  > Thank you.
> > > ___
> >  > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
> >  > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> >  > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
> >
> Thank you very much Jerry.
> 
> It was the problem, I had the free space in a extended partition made
> of ext3fs Linux. The solution was move the space and leave that
> partition totally unalocated. After that everything was ok with the
> installation. I'm on it.
> 
> Thank you.

Hey, I got to get one once in a while.
Glad it is working.   FreeBSD is a good one.

jerry

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Re: Disk Geometry

[ras bsd]

On 28/02/2008, Jerry McAllister <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 12:48:37AM +0100, ras bsd wrote:
>
>  > Hello list, this is my first post here.
>  >
>  > My problem is:
>  >
>  > I've installed the OS in my laptop in this order, Win XP and Debian
>  > GNU/Linux. I'm trying to dive into the freebsd world from many years
>  > in GNU/Linux. When i start the installation, when i have to enter in
>  > the disk partition section an error appears saying that the disk
>  > geometry is not valid and, anyway, I can not see the free disk space
>  > that i left free after the other OS. My scope is keep working the
>  > three OS.
>  > How can i know the correct disk geometry? What am i doing wrong?
>
>
> Well, I don't know why it does not see the free space unless you
>  are looking in the wrong step.   There is often confusion by new
>  users who come from the MS world because FreeBSD uses the term 'slice'
>  and MS uses the term 'primary partition' to refer to the same thing.
>  Due to ancient conventions in Bios and etc, there can be up to 4 slices
>  (or primary partitions) on any physical disk.
>
>  Lunix has its own notion of extended partition as well.  Don't try
>  to use that for FreeBSD.
>
>  FreeBSD must be installed/built in a free slice (primary partition by
>  MS vocabulary).   It cannot be put in some extended partition space.
>
>  It is possible that you have already used up the 4 slices if the laptop
>  manufacturer put a diagnostic utility slice on the drive.  That is
>  normally hidden from MS, but will show up to FreeBSD.  If that is true,
>  and you have used up the number of slices, then FreeBSD will not allow
>  you to add any.  You will need to use a tool such as 'gparted'  or
>  Partition Magic to shuffle things around and maybe squeeze the other
>  slices and even nuke one.
>
>  Then FreeBSD uses the term 'partition' to refer to the subdivisions
>  of a slice.  MS has some things called extended partitions which are
>  not the same thing at all.
>
>  Anyway, the point where you first need to see the free space is in
>  the step dealing with the slices which is done with fdisk(8).
>
>  As for the disk geometry issue, it normally does not matter.  That
>  is the BIOS complaining.   You want to just let it go ahead and
>  build things and try to ignore that error message.   Once it gets
>  past loading the boot sector from a slice, FreeBSD no longer used
>  the BIOS.   It handles everything itself.
>
>  There are exceptions to this response, but go ahead (once you get the
>  free space issue figured out) and try it and see if it works.  It
>  won't hurt anything and if it works, you're home free.  If it doesn't
>  then you have some more exploring to do.I am not quite sure what
>  because although I have frequently seen that message - almost all
>  the time, I have never had it not work to just go ahead and slice,
>  partition and build and ignore the message.  That is with both IDE(SATA)
>  and SCSI(SAS).
>
>  So, your real problem is finding that elusive free slice space or
>  freeing up a slice number to use for it.
>
>  Good luck,
>
>  jerry
>
>
>  >
>  > Mi laptop is Intel Core2 Duo and the Hard Disk is SATA 200 Gb Toshiba
>  > MK2035GSS-(S1).
>  >
>  > Thank you.
>
> > ___
>  > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
>  > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
>  > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
>
Thank you very much Jerry.

It was the problem, I had the free space in a extended partition made
of ext3fs Linux. The solution was move the space and leave that
partition totally unalocated. After that everything was ok with the
installation. I'm on it.

Thank you.
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Re: Disk Geometry

[Jerry McAllister]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 12:48:37AM +0100, ras bsd wrote:

> Hello list, this is my first post here.
> 
> My problem is:
> 
> I've installed the OS in my laptop in this order, Win XP and Debian
> GNU/Linux. I'm trying to dive into the freebsd world from many years
> in GNU/Linux. When i start the installation, when i have to enter in
> the disk partition section an error appears saying that the disk
> geometry is not valid and, anyway, I can not see the free disk space
> that i left free after the other OS. My scope is keep working the
> three OS.
> How can i know the correct disk geometry? What am i doing wrong?

Well, I don't know why it does not see the free space unless you 
are looking in the wrong step.   There is often confusion by new
users who come from the MS world because FreeBSD uses the term 'slice'
and MS uses the term 'primary partition' to refer to the same thing.
Due to ancient conventions in Bios and etc, there can be up to 4 slices
(or primary partitions) on any physical disk.   

Lunix has its own notion of extended partition as well.  Don't try
to use that for FreeBSD.

FreeBSD must be installed/built in a free slice (primary partition by
MS vocabulary).   It cannot be put in some extended partition space.

It is possible that you have already used up the 4 slices if the laptop 
manufacturer put a diagnostic utility slice on the drive.  That is 
normally hidden from MS, but will show up to FreeBSD.  If that is true, 
and you have used up the number of slices, then FreeBSD will not allow 
you to add any.  You will need to use a tool such as 'gparted'  or 
Partition Magic to shuffle things around and maybe squeeze the other
slices and even nuke one.

Then FreeBSD uses the term 'partition' to refer to the subdivisions
of a slice.  MS has some things called extended partitions which are
not the same thing at all.

Anyway, the point where you first need to see the free space is in
the step dealing with the slices which is done with fdisk(8).

As for the disk geometry issue, it normally does not matter.  That
is the BIOS complaining.   You want to just let it go ahead and 
build things and try to ignore that error message.   Once it gets 
past loading the boot sector from a slice, FreeBSD no longer used 
the BIOS.   It handles everything itself.

There are exceptions to this response, but go ahead (once you get the
free space issue figured out) and try it and see if it works.  It
won't hurt anything and if it works, you're home free.  If it doesn't
then you have some more exploring to do.I am not quite sure what
because although I have frequently seen that message - almost all 
the time, I have never had it not work to just go ahead and slice,
partition and build and ignore the message.  That is with both IDE(SATA)
and SCSI(SAS).

So, your real problem is finding that elusive free slice space or
freeing up a slice number to use for it.

Good luck,

jerry
  
> 
> Mi laptop is Intel Core2 Duo and the Hard Disk is SATA 200 Gb Toshiba
> MK2035GSS-(S1).
> 
> Thank you.
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> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Kevin Kinsey]

Lisandro Grullon wrote:
The current setup I got in the machine is using 2 SATA (200GB each) with 
the raid controller that is build into the motherboard (tyan S2885). I 
wanted to add additional space and I got a Areca 1120 which could hold 
another 8 sata drives. I only have a 5 bay enclosure so I went ahead and 
I orderd 5 (300GB) drives. I configure the controller to use Raid 5 with 
4 drives and keep 1 as spare in case of a failure. The problem that is 
bothering me is that the OS works great with the RAID 1 configuration. 
When I boot into FBSD it all goes ok and I loging and everything , but 
when I try configuring the RAID 5 disk set using sysinstall> fdisk I get 
the disk geometry error right after selecting the disk set. I am not 
sure, but is there a way to find out the disk geometry that the 
controller bios is assuming is the correct one. If there is a way to 
find that information our, I can just use the "G" option in fdisk and 
input the correct disk geometry myself. What aproach is the best one to 
take in my case. Thank you. Lisandro



What's still not apparent to me is what the real trouble is.  I
regularly see the "geometry incorrect" message from sysinstall, but
have not had it fail to write.  I'm pretty sure that's what I'm hearing
from Jerry McAllister's response, also.

I guess my question for Lisandro is, "can't you just ignore the
error, do the write, and be OK?"  Of course, I think that if that
were the case, this thread would have been over a few posts ago.
As for the "G" option, I can't say it's made any difference for me...

Have we seen any diagnostic information?  Could we see the relevant
section of /var/run/dmesg.boot?  How about `ls -l /dev/ad* /dev/ar* 
/dev/da*` ?  `bsdlabel /dev/foo` ?


Kevin Kinsey

--
Reactor error - core dumped!

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[jdow]

Usually you have to set RAID configurations in the SATA card's BIOS.
Once its BIOS thinks you have a RAID configuration you have a chance
of proceeding.

(Note that the AGP drivers for that motherboard MAY have problems. The
W-s drivers certainly did when we got one here to setup. I finally
tracked down the problem and it's been a wonderful card ever since. We
have an LSILogic SATA card in it. And that had to be setup in the BIOS
to make it happy. The problem was with AMD supplied AGP drivers.)

{^_^}
- Original Message - 
From: "Lisandro Grullon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



The current setup I got in the machine is using 2 SATA (200GB each) with the
raid controller that is build into the motherboard (tyan S2885). I wanted to
add additional space and I got a Areca 1120 which could hold another 8 sata
drives. I only have a 5 bay enclosure so I went ahead and I orderd 5 (300GB)
drives. I configure the controller to use Raid 5 with 4 drives and keep 1 as
spare in case of a failure. The problem that is bothering me is that the OS
works great with the RAID 1 configuration. When I boot into FBSD it all goes
ok and I loging and everything , but when I try configuring the RAID 5 disk
set using sysinstall> fdisk I get the disk geometry error right after
selecting the disk set. I am not sure, but is there a way to find out the
disk geometry that the controller bios is assuming is the correct one. If
there is a way to find that information our, I can just use the "G" option
in fdisk and input the correct disk geometry myself. What aproach is the
best one to take in my case. Thank you. Lisandro

On 5/25/06, Lisandro Grullon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Is interesting, this is what reca repply back to me. I think areca should
add some sort of utility in the controller to find out the disk geometry
information in the fly and stop blamming FBSD.

Dear Sir,

This is Kevin Wang from Areca Technology, Tech-Support Team.
regarding your problem, it looks like a FreeBSD bug, here is a discussion
i
found in google :
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=429394


Best Regards,


Kevin Wang

Areca Technology Tech-support Division
Tel : 886-2-87974060 Ext. 223
Fax : 886-2-87975970
Http://www.areca.com.tw 
Ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw 



On 5/24/06, Lisandro Grullon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
> problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
> that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
> Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
> to assist me further.
>
>
> On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> > > Good Morning,
> > >
> > > Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8
> > ports
> > > using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
> > using the
> > > SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
> > addition of
> > > last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good
> > and I
> > > installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> > > partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is
> > giving me
> > > nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this
> > all
> > > about? Thank you.
> >
> > We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
> > Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?
> >
> > KDK
> >
> > --
> > Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
> > -- Mel Brooks, The Producers
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Lisandro Grullon
> New York City College of Technology
> Division of Continuing Education
> Director of Network Operations
> Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
> Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at
> once.". 
>



--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".






--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Lisandro Grullon]

The current setup I got in the machine is using 2 SATA (200GB each) with the
raid controller that is build into the motherboard (tyan S2885). I wanted to
add additional space and I got a Areca 1120 which could hold another 8 sata
drives. I only have a 5 bay enclosure so I went ahead and I orderd 5 (300GB)
drives. I configure the controller to use Raid 5 with 4 drives and keep 1 as
spare in case of a failure. The problem that is bothering me is that the OS
works great with the RAID 1 configuration. When I boot into FBSD it all goes
ok and I loging and everything , but when I try configuring the RAID 5 disk
set using sysinstall> fdisk I get the disk geometry error right after
selecting the disk set. I am not sure, but is there a way to find out the
disk geometry that the controller bios is assuming is the correct one. If
there is a way to find that information our, I can just use the "G" option
in fdisk and input the correct disk geometry myself. What aproach is the
best one to take in my case. Thank you. Lisandro

On 5/25/06, Lisandro Grullon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Is interesting, this is what reca repply back to me. I think areca should
add some sort of utility in the controller to find out the disk geometry
information in the fly and stop blamming FBSD.

Dear Sir,

This is Kevin Wang from Areca Technology, Tech-Support Team.
regarding your problem, it looks like a FreeBSD bug, here is a discussion
i
found in google :
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=429394


Best Regards,


Kevin Wang

Areca Technology Tech-support Division
Tel : 886-2-87974060 Ext. 223
Fax : 886-2-87975970
Http://www.areca.com.tw 
Ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw 



On 5/24/06, Lisandro Grullon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
> problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
> that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
> Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
> to assist me further.
>
>
> On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> > > Good Morning,
> > >
> > > Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8
> > ports
> > > using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
> > using the
> > > SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
> > addition of
> > > last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good
> > and I
> > > installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> > > partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is
> > giving me
> > > nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this
> > all
> > > about? Thank you.
> >
> > We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
> > Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?
> >
> > KDK
> >
> > --
> > Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
> > -- Mel Brooks, The Producers
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Lisandro Grullon
> New York City College of Technology
> Division of Continuing Education
> Director of Network Operations
> Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
> Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at
> once.". 
>



--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".






--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[jdow]

From: "Jerry McAllister" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



One thing that comes to mind, as I read below, is that it appears you
setup the drives for RAID 1. Then you transplanted to them to a RAID 5
controller. "Of course" the partition data will be wrong. The hidden
blocks the two RAID controllers use are probably different and the
method of storage for RAID 5 is quite different from that used by RAID 1.

(Worse yet, you may have managed to hose the drives so that any data
on them is gone.)

{^_^}   Joanne
- Original Message - 
From: "Lisandro Grullon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
to assist me further.


I didn't follow all of this thread, so I may be missing something, but
check the FAQs and the list archives.   Geometry error messages and
apparent (but not actual) mismatched have been discussed many times.

Nowdays disk geometry as used by the OS is generally "virtual" and does 
not exactly reflect the actual physical geometry.   In other words, from 
the point of view of how you use it, unless you are creating special driver 
code, the geometry is fiction and, as long as it works, take what the OS 
says and ignore any messages from fdisk.


Now, if it is truly failing, you have non-fictional problems.   


That is the lecture I was getting ready to deliver when I noticed
RAID 5 and RAID 1 with different controllers. RAID 5 and RAID 1 are
not compatible. And there is a good chance that two different breeds
of RAID firmware would store meta data for disk format differently.

{^_-}   (Heck, I have seen two Promise cards that store it differently
   or seemed to.)


On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> > Good Morning,
> >
> > Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports
> > using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
> using the
> > SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
> addition of
> > last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good and
> I
> > installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> > partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is giving
> me
> > nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this all
> > about? Thank you.
>
> We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
> Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?
>
> KDK
>
> --
> Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
> -- Mel Brooks, The Producers
>
>


--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> One thing that comes to mind, as I read below, is that it appears you
> setup the drives for RAID 1. Then you transplanted to them to a RAID 5
> controller. "Of course" the partition data will be wrong. The hidden
> blocks the two RAID controllers use are probably different and the
> method of storage for RAID 5 is quite different from that used by RAID 1.
> 
> (Worse yet, you may have managed to hose the drives so that any data
> on them is gone.)
> 
> {^_^}   Joanne
> - Original Message - 
> From: "Lisandro Grullon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
> problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
> that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
> Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
> to assist me further.

I didn't follow all of this thread, so I may be missing something, but
check the FAQs and the list archives.   Geometry error messages and
apparent (but not actual) mismatched have been discussed many times.

Nowdays disk geometry as used by the OS is generally "virtual" and does 
not exactly reflect the actual physical geometry.   In other words, from 
the point of view of how you use it, unless you are creating special driver 
code, the geometry is fiction and, as long as it works, take what the OS 
says and ignore any messages from fdisk.

Now, if it is truly failing, you have non-fictional problems.   

jerry

> 
> On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> > > Good Morning,
> > >
> > > Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports
> > > using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
> > using the
> > > SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
> > addition of
> > > last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good and
> > I
> > > installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> > > partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is giving
> > me
> > > nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this all
> > > about? Thank you.
> >
> > We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
> > Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?
> >
> > KDK
> >
> > --
> > Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
> > -- Mel Brooks, The Producers
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Lisandro Grullon
> New York City College of Technology
> Division of Continuing Education
> Director of Network Operations
> Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
> Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".
> 
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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Lisandro Grullon]

Is interesting, this is what reca repply back to me. I think areca should
add some sort of utility in the controller to find out the disk geometry
information in the fly and stop blamming FBSD.

Dear Sir,

This is Kevin Wang from Areca Technology, Tech-Support Team.
regarding your problem, it looks like a FreeBSD bug, here is a discussion i
found in google :
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=429394


Best Regards,


Kevin Wang

Areca Technology Tech-support Division
Tel : 886-2-87974060 Ext. 223
Fax : 886-2-87975970
Http://www.areca.com.tw 
Ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw 


On 5/24/06, Lisandro Grullon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
to assist me further.


On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> > Good Morning,
> >
> > Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports
> > using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
> using the
> > SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
> addition of
> > last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good
> and I
> > installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> > partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is
> giving me
> > nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this
> all
> > about? Thank you.
>
> We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
> Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?
>
> KDK
>
> --
> Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
> -- Mel Brooks, The Producers
>
>


--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".






--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[jdow]

One thing that comes to mind, as I read below, is that it appears you
setup the drives for RAID 1. Then you transplanted to them to a RAID 5
controller. "Of course" the partition data will be wrong. The hidden
blocks the two RAID controllers use are probably different and the
method of storage for RAID 5 is quite different from that used by RAID 1.

(Worse yet, you may have managed to hose the drives so that any data
on them is gone.)

{^_^}   Joanne
- Original Message - 
From: "Lisandro Grullon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
to assist me further.

On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> Good Morning,
>
> Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports
> using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
using the
> SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
addition of
> last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good and
I
> installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is giving
me
> nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this all
> about? Thank you.

We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?

KDK

--
Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
-- Mel Brooks, The Producers





--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Lisandro Grullon]

Hi Kevin and thanks for repplyng, sysinstall does not crach at all, the
problem is that the information is not retain by the label. I keep getting
that contact "Disk Geometry" error when I try fdisk into the volume/drive.
Any ideas what is happening. let me know what other information you may need
to assist me further.

On 5/24/06, Kevin Kinsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Lisandro Grullon wrote:
> Good Morning,
>
> Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports
> using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install
using the
> SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the
addition of
> last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good and
I
> installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
> partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is giving
me
> nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this all
> about? Thank you.

We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?

KDK

--
Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
-- Mel Brooks, The Producers





--
Lisandro Grullon
New York City College of Technology
Division of Continuing Education
Director of Network Operations
Lisandro Office:1718-552-1178
Lisandro E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.".

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Re: Disk Geometry Errors.

[Kevin Kinsey]

Lisandro Grullon wrote:

Good Morning,

Last night I was trying installing a new Areca controller 1120 8 ports 
using a 5 bay (300GB seagate) drives Raid 5. The main OS is install using the 
SATA controller in RAID 1 configuration of the mother board, the addition of 
last night was a separate controller I install.The install when good and I

installed my modules in the kernel, now my problem is when I try to
partition the volume using fdisk/label with system install it is giving me
nasty disk geometry incorrect error, can anyone tell me what is this all
about? Thank you.


We'd probably need some more information.  Does sysinstall crash?
Does the fdisk information get written to disk anyway?  The label?

KDK

--
Zero Mostel: That's it baby!  When you got it, flaunt it!  Flaunt it!
-- Mel Brooks, The Producers

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Re: Disk Geometry

[Dan Simmonds]

Thanks Kevin,
This is quite helpful, only I have a fairly unusual disk structure, 
since the disk was originally a dual boot system with windows XP which I 
eventually converted into a full ufs drive. So all the BSD partitions 
are located on what was originally the second half of the disk. Is there 
anyway I can escape out of the automount prompt and run fdisk, or 
anything. I've been trying everything I can think of.

Thanks,
Dan.
Kevin Kinsey wrote:
Dan Simmonds wrote:
I have a relatively new installation of FreeBSD 5.3 which I have been 
running
as a file server. Recently we had a power outage and when I booted up 
the
machine again, instead of a normal boot sequence I was given an 
"automount" prompt.

I understand that I have to mount a disk slice and fsck my hard drive 
(I think
this is right, please correct me if I'm wrong), only its been a while 
since I sliced
up my hard drive and I've forgotten what the disk looks like. Is 
there anyway
of investigating the disk geometry from this automount prompt? The only
commands I seem to have available are mount commands.

Thanks,
Dan.

(Hi, Dan ... this probably needs to go over to [EMAIL PROTECTED],
where more experience folks will see it, so I'm redirecting the CC 
there...)

Ouch!  I hope your disk can recover.  Once you get this grassfire
out, be sure and check your backup strategies
The *only* command you can enter isn't even really a command,
it's simply the answer to the question "where the heck is /boot?"
which is something the system desperately needs to know.
IIRC (and who knows, it has been a little while since I saw this
one, thank Deity) it gives you a hint or two about what to
do.  The usual boot device is /dev/ad0s1 (for IDE drives) or
/dev/da0s1 (for SCSI) and the filesystem type is normally
ufs (but that could vary, ufs2 for example).
Once you get in, you will want to fsck and attempt to
remount your slices; you probably won't have access to a lot
of normal tools (for at least two reasons I can think of:
one being that some of them are on the /usr partition,
and the other being that $PATH is not set, so even stuff
in /bin and /sbin will *say* "not found", just call 'em by the
full path /sbin/fsck, /sbin/mount, etc.)  If everything fscks
clean, try rebooting again to return to multi-user (normal)
mode.
Good luck.
Kevin Kinsey
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Re: Disk Geometry

[Philip M. Gollucci]

Kevin Kinsey wrote:
Dan Simmonds wrote:
I have a relatively new installation of FreeBSD 5.3 which I have been 
running
as a file server. Recently we had a power outage and when I booted up 
the
machine again, instead of a normal boot sequence I was given an 
"automount" prompt.

I understand that I have to mount a disk slice and fsck my hard drive 
(I think
this is right, please correct me if I'm wrong), only its been a while 
since I sliced
up my hard drive and I've forgotten what the disk looks like. Is 
there anyway
of investigating the disk geometry from this automount prompt? The only
commands I seem to have available are mount commands.

Thanks,
Dan.

(Hi, Dan ... this probably needs to go over to [EMAIL PROTECTED],
where more experience folks will see it, so I'm redirecting the CC 
there...)

Ouch!  I hope your disk can recover.  Once you get this grassfire
out, be sure and check your backup strategies
The *only* command you can enter isn't even really a command,
it's simply the answer to the question "where the heck is /boot?"
which is something the system desperately needs to know.
IIRC (and who knows, it has been a little while since I saw this
one, thank Deity) it gives you a hint or two about what to
do.  The usual boot device is /dev/ad0s1 (for IDE drives) or
/dev/da0s1 (for SCSI) and the filesystem type is normally
ufs (but that could vary, ufs2 for example).
Once you get in, you will want to fsck and attempt to
remount your slices; you probably won't have access to a lot
of normal tools (for at least two reasons I can think of:
one being that some of them are on the /usr partition,
and the other being that $PATH is not set, so even stuff
in /bin and /sbin will *say* "not found", just call 'em by the
full path /sbin/fsck, /sbin/mount, etc.)  If everything fscks
clean, try rebooting again to return to multi-user (normal)
mode.
Good luck.
Kevin Kinsey
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Being that this is a file server, its probably a good assumption that
he's using raid which would be ar0s1a by default.
Also
specifically you'll want to do:
fsck /
mount /
swapon -a
/bin/cat /etc/fstab
for each of your partitions other then /
fsck /usr
fsck /tmp
... etc
mount -a
exit
[normal boot should continue]
If you don't want fsck to ask you questions you can use the fsck -y command
(answer yes to all questions)
Be sure the check the lost+found in the root of each slice for recovered 
inodes.

--
END
-
Philip M. Gollucci
Senior Developer - Liquidity Services Inc.
Phone:  202.467.6868 x 268
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web:http://www.liquidation.com
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Re: Disk Geometry

[Kevin Kinsey]

Dan Simmonds wrote:
I have a relatively new installation of FreeBSD 5.3 which I have been 
running
as a file server. Recently we had a power outage and when I booted up the
machine again, instead of a normal boot sequence I was given an 
"automount" prompt.

I understand that I have to mount a disk slice and fsck my hard drive 
(I think
this is right, please correct me if I'm wrong), only its been a while 
since I sliced
up my hard drive and I've forgotten what the disk looks like. Is there 
anyway
of investigating the disk geometry from this automount prompt? The only
commands I seem to have available are mount commands.

Thanks,
Dan.

(Hi, Dan ... this probably needs to go over to [EMAIL PROTECTED],
where more experience folks will see it, so I'm redirecting the CC there...)
Ouch!  I hope your disk can recover.  Once you get this grassfire
out, be sure and check your backup strategies
The *only* command you can enter isn't even really a command,
it's simply the answer to the question "where the heck is /boot?"
which is something the system desperately needs to know.
IIRC (and who knows, it has been a little while since I saw this
one, thank Deity) it gives you a hint or two about what to
do.  The usual boot device is /dev/ad0s1 (for IDE drives) or
/dev/da0s1 (for SCSI) and the filesystem type is normally
ufs (but that could vary, ufs2 for example).
Once you get in, you will want to fsck and attempt to
remount your slices; you probably won't have access to a lot
of normal tools (for at least two reasons I can think of:
one being that some of them are on the /usr partition,
and the other being that $PATH is not set, so even stuff
in /bin and /sbin will *say* "not found", just call 'em by the
full path /sbin/fsck, /sbin/mount, etc.)  If everything fscks
clean, try rebooting again to return to multi-user (normal)
mode.
Good luck.
Kevin Kinsey
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Re: disk geometry confussion

[piotr . smyrak]

On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 21:23:38 +0200, Alex de Kruijff wrote
> On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 02:30:51PM -0400, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > >Please enlighten me. What way I should follow? 
> > 
> > First, make sure you've updated your machine to the most recent 
BIOS.  
> > Next, check the BIOS config about your disk drives, and if there 
exists an 
> > option to allow you to choose LBA mode rather than C/H/S, use 
LBA mode.
> > 
> > NeXT, try using MS-DOS fdisk to create a small DOS partition.  
The re-run 
> > the FreeBSD installation, which now ought to see the partition 
table as 
> > your system wants it.  Don't try to re-enter the partition table 
info 
> > yourself unless you know exactly what you are doing.
> > 
> > If this doesn't work, provide more details (which version of 
FreeBSD, what 
> > you computer hardware is, and what your partition table looks 
like).
> 
> I have had the same problem with FreeBSD-5.2, WD 250G. 
> Windows would install fine, but FreeBSD gave problems with 
> fdisk. I finaly reached a solution afther trying lot of 
> things, but never knew what I did.
> 

Here is what I did. I stopped trying with on-disk sysinstall, I put 
the installation cd into the drive, booted from it and used that 
one. I saw the same warning,  it and proceeded with immediate 
write. 

Now, I don't really know what is the difference between the 
installation cd sysinstal and the installed on disk, but it worked 
for me even though it was not the most elegant solution...

-- 
 Piotr Smyrak
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install

[Chuck Swiger]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[ ... ]
The only problem is that the geometry was reported as bad by
sysinstall, and implied I needed to change it.
When you access a drive in LBA mode, the BIOS reports a "fake" geometry.  This 
is the warning you see, but you probably do not need to change anything, just 
create a new FreeBSD partition in the unused space.

Yet the partition step appears to have changed it already, or is
assuming it will be changed.
The installer is displaying the existing partition table as it is on the disk, 
which shows an NTFS filesystem (presumably Windows).  Your job is to add a new 
partition to hold FreeBSD.

I don't understand what the situation is:
  sysinstall reported geometry as 155061/16/63 and said it was bad
  then partitioning assumes it will be  9729/255/63
Do I actually have to run pfdisk to change it from 155061/16/63 to
9729/255/63?
No.
One more question:
The installation notes say the root partition must be below cylinder
1024.  If I want a largish (8G) partition for windows, how do I
accomplish this?
This limitation was a problem with older BIOSes which depended on booting 
using the pre-LBA C/H/S style geometry.  I believe even that issue could be 
solved by using a boot manager like GAG, but I doubt you'll run into this 
problem either if your BIOS understands LBA.

--
-Chuck
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Re: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install

[freebsd]

Subhro wrote:
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 02:03:21 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 


The only problem is that the geometry was reported as bad by
sysinstall, and implied I needed to change it.
Yet the partition step appears to have changed it already, or is
assuming it will be changed.
I don't understand what the situation is:
 sysinstall reported geometry as 155061/16/63 and said it was bad
 then partitioning assumes it will be  9729/255/63

Ignore the warning and proceed with the install. The partitioning
utility had already guessed the correct values and will proceed it.
BTW may I have the part number of the drive? I would like to check the
hardware literature.
Seagate ST380013AS
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/sata/cuda7200_sata_pm.pdf
Thanks again.
Gary
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Re: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install

[Subhro]

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 02:03:21 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

> The only problem is that the geometry was reported as bad by
> sysinstall, and implied I needed to change it.
> Yet the partition step appears to have changed it already, or is
> assuming it will be changed.
> I don't understand what the situation is:
>   sysinstall reported geometry as 155061/16/63 and said it was bad
>   then partitioning assumes it will be  9729/255/63

Ignore the warning and proceed with the install. The partitioning
utility had already guessed the correct values and will proceed it.
BTW may I have the part number of the drive? I would like to check the
hardware literature.

> Do I actually have to run pfdisk to change it from 155061/16/63 to
> 9729/255/63?

No you dont need to do it.

> 
> One more question:
> 
> The installation notes say the root partition must be below cylinder
> 1024.  



This one was valid for old BIOSses which blindly believed the fact
that all kinds of bootable partitions MUST start under cylinder 1024.
This does not hold true if the onboard BIOS is not older than 3 years.

> Thanks,

You are most welcome

Regards
S.

-- 
Subhro Sankha Kar
School of Information Technology
Block AQ-13/1 Sector V
ZIP 700091
India
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Re: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install

[freebsd]

Subhro wrote:
When I boot off a CD (image created from downloaded iso image),
start the install, and go to allocate the freebsd slice, it reports
 155061/16/63  ad4
and says the geometry is invalid
What does the sticker on top of the drive say about its geometry. I
would like to explicitly instruct fdisk to use the Geometry on the
sticker but only if fdisk or anyone else complains during the install.
There is nothing about geometry on the drive itself.
The official specs from Seagate say it reports a default logical
geometry of 16383/16/63, but that only covers 8G...
There is no other mention of geometry in the specs;
it simply says that using LBA the sectors are addressed 0...n-1
If I go ahead and attempt to partition, I see
Geometry ad4 9729 cylinders/255 heads/63 sectors = 156296385 sectors
  (76316MB)
 Offset   Size(St)End  Name  PType  Desc  SubType  Flags
  0 63 62   --12   unused 0
 63   16386237   16386299  ad4s1   4   NTFS/HPFS/QNX  7
16386300  139915188  156301487   --12   unused 0

This one is fine. Whats the problem? You can just make up the slice
from the unsed free space starting from offset 16386300.
The only problem is that the geometry was reported as bad by
sysinstall, and implied I needed to change it.
Yet the partition step appears to have changed it already, or is
assuming it will be changed.
I don't understand what the situation is:
  sysinstall reported geometry as 155061/16/63 and said it was bad
  then partitioning assumes it will be  9729/255/63
Do I actually have to run pfdisk to change it from 155061/16/63 to
9729/255/63?
One more question:
The installation notes say the root partition must be below cylinder
1024.  If I want a largish (8G) partition for windows, how do I
accomplish this?  Do I have to make 4 partitions, a small one for
booting windows, a small one for freebsd's root, and then a larger
one for the rest of windows and another larger one for the rest of
freebsd?
e.g.
 cylpartitionuse
1- 511  1windows boot
  512-1023  2freebsd /
 1024-1500  3windows additional stuff
 1501-9729  4freebsd filesystems other than /
Thanks,
Gary
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Re: Disk geometry, 5.3b7 install

[Subhro]

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:48:34 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

> When I boot off a CD (image created from downloaded iso image),
> start the install, and go to allocate the freebsd slice, it reports
>   155061/16/63  ad4
> and says the geometry is invalid
> 

What does the sticker on top of the drive say about its geometry. I
would like to explicitly instruct fdisk to use the Geometry on the
sticker but only if fdisk or anyone else complains during the install.

> If I go ahead and attempt to partition, I see
> Geometry ad4 9729 cylinders/255 heads/63 sectors = 156296385 sectors
>(76316MB)
>   Offset   Size(St)End  Name  PType  Desc  SubType  Flags
>0 63 62   --12   unused 0
>   63   16386237   16386299  ad4s1   4   NTFS/HPFS/QNX  7
> 16386300  139915188  156301487   --12   unused 0
> 

This one is fine. Whats the problem? You can just make up the slice
from the unsed free space starting from offset 16386300.

> F1 help suggests running tools/pfdisk, for which there appears to be
> no documentation, but which appears to be a very old tool applicable
> only to disks smaller than 8G and not using LBA.

Nopes thats not right. It does apply to the modern drives well.

> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  Is the geometry (155061/16/63) really invalid?
> Given the 1024 cyl limitation, it doesn't look to me like the
> modified geometry (9729/255/63) assumed? by fdisk is any better,
> since both 155061 and 9729 are > 1024.
> In any case, the drive uses LBA, so why is this an issue and
> even being reported?

Well, I already answered the first part. Regarding the reporting,
there can be many reasons why it is reaported. One of the most common
reason is that, the BIOS does not allow LBA transparently. Also
FreeBSD had the reputation (or should I say ill reputation?) of
getting information directly from the hardware and nopt rely on BIOS
whenever it can.

> 2.  Do I really want to reset it?  Is that even relevant when LBA
> is being used?

I would reset it only if someone complains during install.

> 3.  Is pfdisk and geometry even relevant for disks > 8G?
> 
As far as I know it is.

> Thanks for any insights,

You are welcome

Regards
S.

-- 
Subhro Sankha Kar
School of Information Technology
Block AQ-13/1 Sector V
ZIP 700091
India
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Re: disk geometry confussion

[Alex de Kruijff]

On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 02:30:51PM -0400, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >Please enlighten me. What way I should follow? 
> 
> First, make sure you've updated your machine to the most recent BIOS.  
> Next, check the BIOS config about your disk drives, and if there exists an 
> option to allow you to choose LBA mode rather than C/H/S, use LBA mode.
> 
> NeXT, try using MS-DOS fdisk to create a small DOS partition.  The re-run 
> the FreeBSD installation, which now ought to see the partition table as 
> your system wants it.  Don't try to re-enter the partition table info 
> yourself unless you know exactly what you are doing.
> 
> If this doesn't work, provide more details (which version of FreeBSD, what 
> you computer hardware is, and what your partition table looks like).

I have had the same problem with FreeBSD-5.2, WD 250G. Windows would
install fine, but FreeBSD gave problems with fdisk. I finaly reached a
solution afther trying lot of things, but never knew what I did.

-- 
Alex

Please copy the original recipients, otherwise I may not read your reply.
WWW: http://www.kruijff.org/alex/FreeBSD/
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Re: disk geometry confussion

[Chuck Swiger]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Please enlighten me. What way I should follow? 
First, make sure you've updated your machine to the most recent BIOS.  Next, 
check the BIOS config about your disk drives, and if there exists an option to 
allow you to choose LBA mode rather than C/H/S, use LBA mode.

NeXT, try using MS-DOS fdisk to create a small DOS partition.  The re-run the 
FreeBSD installation, which now ought to see the partition table as your 
system wants it.  Don't try to re-enter the partition table info yourself 
unless you know exactly what you are doing.

If this doesn't work, provide more details (which version of FreeBSD, what you 
computer hardware is, and what your partition table looks like).

--
-Chuck
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Re: Disk geometry salad...

[Roman Oistacher]

Ok. Thanks for the answers.
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Re: Disk geometry salad...

[jon]

>From a high level view, it means you don't have access to 4.6 meg of
data space on a 40 gig hard drive.  That represents 1/1 of the
disk space you do have available to you.  Don't worry about it, install
the OS and enjoy FreeBSD.

> > 2) When installing FreeBSD, sysinstall warns that a geometry of the
> > first drive (1) as it detects it (77545/16/63) is incorrect and
> > can't be used. It automatically replaces the values with
> > 4865/255/63. The problem is that after replacing the geometry with
> > 4865/255/63 the number of LBA sectors (as listed in the Disk Slice
> > editor) becomes lower than the manufacturer spec (78,156,225 instead
> > of 78,165,360). What does this mean?

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Re: Disk geometry salad...

[Roman Oistacher]

Robert Storey wrote:
You've encountered a well-known bug in the installer. I've experienced
it too and so have many others.
During the install, when you're in the fdisk partition editor, just
hitting "g" is usually all you have to do to correct the bug. If you've
already installed, I'm not sure what you can do to correct the bug other
than go back and reinstall, this time hitting "g". There might be
another way to change disk geometry without doing that, but I don't know
how (anybody reading this know?).
After complaining about an incorrect geometry, sysinstall (or Fdisk)
automatically enters the values it finds 'more appropriate' as the
geometry. Hitting 'g' simply opens a dialog where I'm supposed to enter
the geometry manually.

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Re: Disk geometry salad...

[Robert Storey]

> > 2) When installing FreeBSD, sysinstall warns that a geometry of the
> > first drive (1) as it detects it (77545/16/63) is incorrect and
> > can't be used. It automatically replaces the values with
> > 4865/255/63. The problem is that after replacing the geometry with
> > 4865/255/63 the number of LBA sectors (as listed in the Disk Slice
> > editor) becomes lower than the manufacturer spec (78,156,225 instead
> > of 78,165,360). What does this mean?

You've encountered a well-known bug in the installer. I've experienced
it too and so have many others.

During the install, when you're in the fdisk partition editor, just
hitting "g" is usually all you have to do to correct the bug. If you've
already installed, I'm not sure what you can do to correct the bug other
than go back and reinstall, this time hitting "g". There might be
another way to change disk geometry without doing that, but I don't know
how (anybody reading this know?).

You might want to take a look at the following article, the geometry bug
is discussed about 1/3 down from the top:

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=review-freebsd

regards,
Robert
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Re: Disk geometry salad...

[Dan Strick]

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 13:37:49 +0200, roman wrote:
>>
> I have two Western Digital hard drives, (1) WD400BB (40GB) and (2)
> WD300BB (30GB) and an Asus CUS-L2C motherboard (Intel 815EP chipset).
> The manufacturer website doesn't provide the CHS geometry for the
> drives, but lists the number of LBA sectors for each drive. For (1) it's
> 78,165,360 sectors * 512 bytes resulting in about 40.02 GB. For (2) it's
> 58,633,344 sectors * 512 bytes resulting in about 30.02 GB.
>
> On the first drive I currently have Windows XP, the second drive is empty.
>
> Western Digital's diagnostic utility for Windows detects the CHS
> geometry of the drives as (1) 4865/255/63 and (2) 3649/255/63 and
> confirms that the number of LBA sectors is identical to the manufacturer
> specification.
>
> FreeBSD 5.2.1 detects the CHS geometry (When it boots, there's a listing
> of the hard drives and the CHS geometry, but no LBA sectors) as (1)
> 77545/16/63 and (2) 58168/16/63.
>
> I have several questions regarding this.
>
> 1) What is the difference between a geometry of 58168/16/63 and
> 3649/255/63, why did the diagnostic utility detect the latter form,
> while FreeBSD detected the former (Also, Linux 2.4 detects the geometry
> as 3649/255/63)?
>>

The c/h/s data format used to pass a disk sector address to an ATA disk
drive permits at most 65536 cylinders, 16 heads and 255 sectors per track.
The data format used by an ATA disk to report its c/h/s geometry permits
at most 65535 cylinders.  It also reports its sector capacity and maximum
addressable LBA block number in 32 bit fields.  This geometry is usually
somewhat artificial and may be changed by the host system.

The c/h/s data format used to pass a disk sector address to a BIOS disk
service routine permits at most 1024 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors
per track.  In order to maximize the number of disk sectors that can be
addressed using the BIOS interface, a BIOS often reports a disk geometry
different than what the disk reports to the BIOS and uses that "BIOS"
geometry when interpreting disk addresses specified in BIOS function
calls.  A BIOS geometry usually has 255 heads and 63 sectors per track
because that produces the largest addressable disk size.

>From the information you have provided I cannot be certain how the
numbers you report were generated, but I can speculate.  The ATA disk
might report a default geometry with 16 heads and 63 sectors per track
because those numbers can be used with both ATA and BIOS geometries.
The ATA disk cannot report more than 65535 cylinders, but it can report
the actual disk capacity in sectors.  If FreeBSD were to divide the ATA
disk capacity by the cylinder size (#heads * #sectors), it might
conclude that the 40GB drive has 77545 cylinders.  Since such a large
cylinder number cannot be specified in c/h/s format, the driver must
be using LBA format when issuing read/write commands.

If you divide the 40 GB drive capacity by the typical BIOS cylinder size,
you get 4865 cylinders.  That is probably where the disk geometry
"4865/255/63" comes from.  Since cylinder numbers above 1023 cannot
be passed to BIOS function calls, the "extended" BIOS functions which
use 28 bit LBA addressing must be used to access the entire drive.

The common FreeBSD bootstrap program uses the BIOS disk functions with
c/h/s addressing by default and therefore cannot access more than
1024*255*63 sectors, a little under 8 GB, unless it is reconfigured
with the "boot0cfg" command to use the extended BIOS disk functions.
It is often hard to tell exactly what a particular BIOS and bootstrap
configuration are doing.  You may be able to avoid confusing bootstrap
problems by keeping all disk partitions used for booting inside the
first 1024*255*63 sectors.

>>
> 2) When installing FreeBSD, sysinstall warns that a geometry of the
> first drive (1) as it detects it (77545/16/63) is incorrect and can't be
> used. It automatically replaces the values with 4865/255/63. The problem
> is that after replacing the geometry with 4865/255/63 the number of LBA
> sectors (as listed in the Disk Slice editor) becomes lower than the
> manufacturer spec (78,156,225 instead of 78,165,360). What does this mean?
>>

Sysinstall, which probably uses BIOS geometry, apparently knows that a
geometry with so many cylinders cannot be correct.  It apparently guessed
255 heads and 63 sectors per track and computed the largest number of
cylinders that would produce a disk capacity that did not exceed the
capacity specified by the original geometry.  Since you can't have a
fraction of a cylinder, you often lose access to a few sectors when you
convert the disk geometry.  This beats getting an I/O error because you
rounded the number of cylinders up instead of down.  I don't know why
sysinstall seems to tolerate 4865 (more than 1024) cylinders.

(Note: a BIOS usually uses a geometry with 255 heads and 63 sectors per
track but could choose to use a smaller number of heads or sectors.
It is possible 

Re: disk geometry issues during sysinstall of 5.2.1

[Robert Storey]

I have found that if you just hit "g", it will report the correct disk
geometry and fix the problem without any further intervention. Ideally,
it would be better if this disk geometry bug gets fixed, but for the
time being, hitting "g" is a quick and dirty fix that works for most
people. I wouldn't just ignore the error message and install - I have
indeed messed up my disk geometry that way and had to spend some time
getting it back to the correct settings.

regards,
Robert

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 14:06:04 -0800 
"Goodleaf, John M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Also, does it really matter? I've poked around the web and it seems
> like a lot of folks have encountered this and simply chosen to ignore
> it. Certainly there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer out there
> that I've seen.

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Re: Disk geometry

[DoubleF]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 22:02:31 +0200 "radu.florin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> probably wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:20:42 -0500, Andrew L. Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 24 September 2003 03:09 pm, Sergey "DoubleF" Zaharchenko 
> > wrote:
> >> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 17:11:49 +0200 "radu.florin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > probably wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> > I'm testing the coexistence of Win95, Linux Slackware and Free BSD 5.1
> >> > on a single physical disk PC ( P133, 16Mo RAM, 3 GO dd).
> >> > Just the time to see if I can boot to the OS I want to use.
> >> > Then to install on a PC with 384 Mo RAM a 40 Go dd
> >> > On the P133 I'm testing, all is working fine with Win and Slack.

> >> #boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0BUGS

This line should, of course, read

#boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0

(it was a mispaste from the man)

> >>
> >> (replace ad0 with the harddrive). man 8 boot0cfg for details. It says:
> >>
> >> man> Use of the `packet' option may cause `boot0' to fail, depending 
> >> on
> >> the man> nature of BIOS support.
> >>
> >> HTH

> I use for install purpose the floppies kern.flp, mfsroot.flp and 
> drivers.flp (for my CD )
> During the install I did'nt met "security" floppie proposal to initiate in 
> case of boot pb.
> As soon as install is finished, the only way to exit the install menu is 
> to...reboot.
> So what floppy can I use to try the boot0cfg routine you propose ?

I always have one diskette for such special cases;). Try googling for a
"RIP diskette image", that's the one I am using. AFAIR it has boot0cfg;
if it doesn't, you can at least boot from it into a usable system (even
MC is there!), mount your / and /usr and run the boot0cfg binary which
is in /usr/sbin.

Example (FreeBSD is on ad0 on first slice):
#mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt
#mount /dev/ad0s1e /mnt/usr
#/mnt/usr/boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0

HTH
-- 
DoubleF
Remember the golden rule:
Those that have the gold make the rules.


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Re: Disk geometry

[radu.florin]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:20:42 -0500, Andrew L. Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

On Wednesday 24 September 2003 03:09 pm, Sergey "DoubleF" Zaharchenko 
wrote:
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 17:11:49 +0200 "radu.florin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
probably wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm testing the coexistence of Win95, Linux Slackware and Free BSD 5.1
> on a single physical disk PC ( P133, 16Mo RAM, 3 GO dd).
> Just the time to see if I can boot to the OS I want to use.
> Then to install on a PC with 384 Mo RAM a 40 Go dd
> On the P133 I'm testing, all is working fine with Win and Slack.
> Slack boot lets me go to Win or Linux without any problem.
> I installed also a minimal FreeBSD in good conditions.
> But I have no access at it...
> Slack boot don't see it.
> And if I accept-when installing Free BSD - one of his boots (MBR or 
SB)
> I can't have no Win, no Slack, neither FreeBSD. It displays the usual
> choice F1, F2... but no one works (just screaming).
> It seems to be a dd geometry problem.

No. It is the BIOS that seems to be the problem. It might be unable to
do packet interface which is by default required by BootEasy. You could
try booting from a FreeBSD floppy and running
#boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0BUGS

(replace ad0 with the harddrive). man 8 boot0cfg for details. It says:

man> Use of the `packet' option may cause `boot0' to fail, depending 
on
the man> nature of BIOS support.

HTH
I may be way off here, but were the bootable partitions for each 
operating set as bootable in the partitioning section of the installation 
procedures?

Yesterday, I reinstalled Win2K on a portion of the 1st hard drive of my 
desktop.  (FreeBSD is on the 2nd hard drive.) I then executed 
/stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD to mark the Win2K partition as bootable and 
load the FreeBSD boot loader into the MBR.  Later, I installed NetBSD on 
the last part of the 1st hard drive, leaving the MBR alone during NetBSD 
installation.

When I rebooted, the FreeBSD boot loader showed the partitions for each 
operating system; but would only boot Win2K and FreeBSD.  I had to go 
back to /stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD to mark the NetBSD partition as 
bootable.  Now I can boot all 3 operating systems (one at a time, of 
course!) .

Best of luck,

Andrew Gould




Thank you Sergey and Andrew.

For Andrew: I set bootable all the partitions (OS) but the result is the 
same, so:
when I set BSD boot, F1,F2, etc screaming and not working.
when I set  Standard MBR boot I get "INVALID PARTITION TABLE"

For Sergey:

I use for install purpose the floppies kern.flp, mfsroot.flp and 
drivers.flp (for my CD )
During the install I did'nt met "security" floppie proposal to initiate in 
case of boot pb.
As soon as install is finished, the only way to exit the install menu is 
to...reboot.
So what floppy can I use to try the boot0cfg routine you propose ?
After repairing the MBR I have two OS operating (Win and Slack) and 
one(SBD) installed but closed.
Newbie question, perhaps.
Thank you



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Re: Disk geometry

[Andrew L. Gould]

On Wednesday 24 September 2003 03:09 pm, Sergey "DoubleF" Zaharchenko wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 17:11:49 +0200 "radu.florin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
probably wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm testing the coexistence of Win95, Linux Slackware and Free BSD 5.1
> > on a single physical disk PC ( P133, 16Mo RAM, 3 GO dd).
> > Just the time to see if I can boot to the OS I want to use.
> > Then to install on a PC with 384 Mo RAM a 40 Go dd
> > On the P133 I'm testing, all is working fine with Win and Slack.
> > Slack boot lets me go to Win or Linux without any problem.
> > I installed also a minimal FreeBSD in good conditions.
> > But I have no access at it...
> > Slack boot don't see it.
> > And if I accept-when installing Free BSD - one of his boots (MBR or SB)
> > I can't have no Win, no Slack, neither FreeBSD. It displays the usual
> > choice F1, F2... but no one works (just screaming).
> > It seems to be a dd geometry problem.
>
> No. It is the BIOS that seems to be the problem. It might be unable to
> do packet interface which is by default required by BootEasy. You could
> try booting from a FreeBSD floppy and running
>
> #boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0BUGS
>
> (replace ad0 with the harddrive). man 8 boot0cfg for details. It says:
>
> man> Use of the `packet' option may cause `boot0' to fail, depending on
> the man> nature of BIOS support.
>
> HTH

I may be way off here, but were the bootable partitions for each operating set 
as bootable in the partitioning section of the installation procedures?

Yesterday, I reinstalled Win2K on a portion of the 1st hard drive of my 
desktop.  (FreeBSD is on the 2nd hard drive.) I then executed 
/stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD to mark the Win2K partition as bootable and load 
the FreeBSD boot loader into the MBR.  Later, I installed NetBSD on the last 
part of the 1st hard drive, leaving the MBR alone during NetBSD installation.

When I rebooted, the FreeBSD boot loader showed the partitions for each 
operating system; but would only boot Win2K and FreeBSD.  I had to go back to 
/stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD to mark the NetBSD partition as bootable.  Now I 
can boot all 3 operating systems (one at a time, of course!) .

Best of luck,

Andrew Gould
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Re: Disk geometry

[DoubleF]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 17:11:49 +0200 "radu.florin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> probably wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm testing the coexistence of Win95, Linux Slackware and Free BSD 5.1
> on a single physical disk PC ( P133, 16Mo RAM, 3 GO dd).
> Just the time to see if I can boot to the OS I want to use.
> Then to install on a PC with 384 Mo RAM a 40 Go dd
> On the P133 I'm testing, all is working fine with Win and Slack.
> Slack boot lets me go to Win or Linux without any problem.
> I installed also a minimal FreeBSD in good conditions.
> But I have no access at it...
> Slack boot don't see it.
> And if I accept-when installing Free BSD - one of his boots (MBR or SB)
> I can't have no Win, no Slack, neither FreeBSD. It displays the usual 
> choice F1, F2... but no one works (just screaming).
> It seems to be a dd geometry problem.

No. It is the BIOS that seems to be the problem. It might be unable to
do packet interface which is by default required by BootEasy. You could
try booting from a FreeBSD floppy and running

#boot0cfg -o nopacket /dev/ad0BUGS

(replace ad0 with the harddrive). man 8 boot0cfg for details. It says:

man> Use of the `packet' option may cause `boot0' to fail, depending on the
man> nature of BIOS support.

HTH
-- 
DoubleF
Create problems for which only you have the answer.


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Re: disk geometry problem

[Adam]

On Thu, 2003-06-12 at 15:47, prodigy wrote:
> I got a problem with installation of freebsd v.4.8
> I cannot get past the boot manager's F? prompt after installation. Where and How can 
> I find out exact disc geometry.

You can get it in 2 ways:

a) From the system BIOS
b) From the FreeBSD install CD, when setting up your partitions (it
reports the disk geometry at the top of the screen)

Hope this helps,
-- 
Adam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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