Re: problem with 1024 cylinders
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:48:01 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have one IDE disk drive with 40GB ... my question is ... does the FreeBSD still have the restriction that its = root file system must be installed in the first 1024 cylinders??? ... On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 22:23:12 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] responded: I think this is a rather nifty feature of the FreeBSD bootloader (the infamous boot0). It can boot anything from anywhere on any disk (someone correct me if I'm wrong here, please), provided that what it boots wants to boot from where it's situated. I know WinXP expects to have its startup files on the first partition on the first physical disk and refuses to start up otherwise, other OSes may have similar quirks. But from what I gather, FreeBSD is quite forgiving in this regard. FreeBSD can access the entire disk once it is up an running, but the bootstrap program used to load the FreeBSD kernel may be limited. The FreeBSD boot0 bootstrap program, which is sometimes confused with the older booteasy program, may be configured to use either the old or new BIOS disk functions to load the kernel. The boot0 program is not smart enough to determine automatically which flavor of BIOS disk functions it should use. It is configured by the boot0cfg program to always use one or the other. See the packet option on the FreeBSD man page for the boot0cfg program. If the boot0 program is configured to use the old BIOS disk functions, it cannot read past the first 1024 cylinders. If boot0 is using the new BIOS disk functions, your bootable disk partitions can be anywhere on the drive. This applies to any OS you might try to boot using boot0. To verify that you are using boot0 and to determine how it is configured, issue a command like: boot0cfg -v ad0 Dan Strick ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: problem with 1024 cylinders
fancalenno wrote: I have one IDE disk drive with 40GB I used the partition utility of win xp to make three partitions when I was installing winxp. Its sequence is pri(xp)-ext(xp)-pri(bsd). I installed the xp on the first partition(pri) and put some personal data on the next partition(ext). In the partition editor, I deleted(d) the third partition(pri) that I had made, then created(c) a new BSD partition. Three partitions occupy 8GB. 16GB. 14GB in sequence respectively. After testing, both of win xp and FreeBSD can run normally with no problem. -- my question is ... does the FreeBSD still have the restriction that its root file system must be installed in the first 1024 cylinders??? -- a. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/multi-os/ch3.html the document as above point out should put the root file system / into the 1204 cylinders of the first disk drive otherwise bsd can't start normally. b. The book FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your Personal Computer by Annelise Anderson say FreeBSD needs a few of its files(those in the / or 'slash' root file system)close enough to the front of the drive so the computer can find them. And every other operating system needs some files up front too... I used partition magic to see the cylinder range of my bsd partition. It indicated the cylinder range of bsd had already gone beyond the 1024 cylinders! But I still can use booteasy to start both of these two os. So I can't figure out if the FreeBSD was really restricted by the 1024 cylinders??? - I think if it's about boot manager??? The common boot manager uses BIOS to start the os, but it's also restricted by BIOS. The BIOS has the restriction that os can't be start if some files of os(just as / of bsd)go beyond 1024 cylinders. But the booteasy doesn't use the BIOS, so it's not restricted by BIOS? I had ever used OS-BS to boot these two os, the xp can start normally but the BSD can't. The pop up prompt window sayNO OPERATING SYSTEM!. So I can't make sure if the factorboot manager use BIOS or not affects the 1024 cylinders? Greetings! I think this is a rather nifty feature of the FreeBSD bootloader (the infamous boot0). It can boot anything from anywhere on any disk (someone correct me if I'm wrong here, please), provided that what it boots wants to boot from where it's situated. I know WinXP expects to have its startup files on the first partition on the first physical disk and refuses to start up otherwise, other OSes may have similar quirks. But from what I gather, FreeBSD is quite forgiving in this regard. If someone more knowledgeable would care to elaborate (or, quite possibly even more likely, correct me), please do. -Henrik W Lund ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
