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From: dhhoveme@rodan.acs.syr.EDU (David H. Hovemeyer)
Subject: newfs travails
Message-ID: <1993Jul29.210143.29664@newstand.syr.edu>
Keywords: NetBSD newfs
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 21:01:42 EDT
Lines: 60
I have finally gotten my second IDE drive working under NetBSD.
Here is a brief summary of my experience:
Disklabelling:
Working out the disklabel on paper was (interestingly) the
easiest part of the process. Section 2.5.1.1 of the FAQ told me
everything I needed to know. Using the installation generated entry
for my 1st drive as a guide, I created an entry in /etc/disktab. So
far, so good. disklabel created the first hurdle. When I tried
# disklabel -w -r wd1 cp30174e
I got the message
Bootstrap doesn't leave room for disk label
After I posted this problem, a kind netter identified the problem
as corrupted /usr/mdec files. Sure enough, after copying bootwd
and wdboot from /usr/mdec on the 1st install disk, this problem
cleared up.
Using newfs:
After the disklabel was written, I tried
# newfs /dev/wd1a
which caused the machine to promptly hang. The man page was not
particularly helpful. Here is how I solved this problem.
After suspecting that I had a bum copy of newfs (and making
a post suggesting this) it occurred to me that newfs must have
worked during the install process (considering that disk #1 was
up and running), perhaps the install script would shed some light
on my problem. Sure enough, here is the line initializing the
root filesystem:
newfs /dev/r${drivename}a $name
Tracing back in the script, I found that name contains the label
name written to /etc/disktab. I then tried
# newfs /dev/rwd1a cp30174e
which proceeded without a hitch. After
# fsck /dev/rwd1a
I was all done.
The reason I am posting this is that the syntax for newfs
is not especially clear in the FAQ (section 2.5.1.1). Where it
mentions "newfs /dev/rwd?x" it really ought to say
"newfs /dev/rwd?x <drivetype>", if my experience is a good
indication of the practice of using newfs. Otherwise the FAQ
is excellent.
Now I just need to decide what to do with the extra 170 megs.
Dave
--
dhhoveme@rodan.acs.syr.edu