Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!its.csiro.au!dmssyd.syd.dms.CSIRO.AU!metro!news.cs.uow.edu.au!picasso.cssc-syd.tansu.com.au!orca1.vic.design.telecom.com.au!netbsd08.telecom.com.au!not-for-mail From: tdwyer@netbsd08.telecom.com.au (Terry Dwyer 491 5161) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Problems with NetBSD-08 and ESDI - Please help! Date: 9 Aug 1993 15:33:52 +0800 Organization: Telecom Australia Lines: 24 Message-ID: <244ule$cke@netbsd08.telecom.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: netbsd08.telecom.com.au After having installed NetBSD-08 on two 486's with Adaptec 1542B SCSI controllers, I thought I would not have too many problems installing on a 486 with a Western Digital WD1007V ESDI controller. Boy, was I wrong. The drive is a WREN V 94186-383H. Translation has been turned off. I have tried alternate sector mapping on and off, set the drive SPT (according to manufacturers specs) to 34 and 36, used the ESDI bios to low level format the drive, and WDFMT (a WD utility), to do the same. There is a difference in the way the formatters work - the BIOS utility appears to replace every bad sector found with a sector it maps in from the last two cylinders of the drive hence moving sectors to a different rack on the disk. The WDFMT util seems to mark the bad sectors (in place), and leaves the drive geometry alone. Needless to say, none of the above work, and all fail consistently with write errors. It seems that NetBSD is not paying any attention to any bad sector mapping done by either of the WD formatters. When installing NetBSD, I've tried a y and an n reply to the question about automatic bad sector forwarding, results were the same both times, with bad sectors being found either during install or when copying the distribution onto the drive. Any ideas? Terry.