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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ee.und.ac.za!hippo.ru.ac.za!itu1.sun.ac.za!abs From: abs@cs.sun.ac.za (Andre Skarzynski) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Question for FREEbsd folks Date: 10 Nov 1993 07:49:20 GMT Organization: University of Stellenbosch Lines: 60 Message-ID: <2bq6e0$t03@itu1.sun.ac.za> References: <2bbk7h$t67@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> <MYCROFT.93Nov8112055@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: itu1.sun.ac.za X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Charles Hannum (mycroft@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu) wrote: : In article <2blkbh$kuc@itu1.sun.ac.za> abs@cs.sun.ac.za (Andre : Skarzynski) writes: : I beg to differ dear sir! With both NetBSD-0.8 and then with : NetBSD-0.9, I had this harddrive hanging problem. When I moved over : to _FreeBSD_, the problem went away and never came back. : Given that I have actually tried a FreeBSD kernel on two machines here : that exhibit the problem (one with IDE and one with SCSI), and that : numerous people have reported it in either system, I tend to wonder : what *else* you did to your system at the same time. : For starters, did you repartition your disks? Ok, I was not clear in my posting maybe, so let me try and explain more clearly. ( I am afraid my English vocabulary is not as good as it should be. :) I started off with 386BSD-0.1 when it was released, and followed the patch-kit route. At one stage, I thought I would have a try at getting a secondary MFM controller going. I started looking at the wd code, and then saw the basroom (sp?) driver from Norway. So I grabbed it and installed it. Unfortantly I had problems with my disks. Hangs and the like. I figured that may be I should re- label and format the disks. Ok this worked so far as I can recall, but there was same other problem, hanging now and then with the controller light just comming on and staying like this... Anyway to cut a long story short, I had trouble with the drive on the secondary controller anyway, so I just ditched the effort and went back to the orig drivers. Then NetBSD arrived. I liked the features it had etc. I was really looking forward to it. I installed the first release, re-labeling my disk etc. I did a complete install. But disaster struck, and I started to get the hard drive hangs now and then. The machine would run for sometime and when least expected, wammo!, there she goes. Anyway, I did mail the netbsd mailing list, and found the guys very helpful. Unfortantly non of them used MFM's it seemed so it was not easy for them. If I had the money I would also just use SCSI :-). Due to work-load, I put my *BSD playing to the side for a while. Then NetBSD-0.9 was released. Great, I said, this looks good. Has all the things I can use here at work etc. I installed it, and it worked! Great I said, but not long afterwards, the dreaded disk hangs where back! Arg! "Why me!" I asked. Well, FreeBSD-1.0-GAMMA, was here, so I installed that, and it ran for weeks, untill due to some rotten luck, I trashed a disklabel :-(. Now I am running FreeBSD-1.0-FINAL, and so far things seem ok. I will do more tests, and make sure that things are really OK. If I have a hang prob or the like, I will yell here on the group! :-) And yes, I did disklabel the drives. Just to be sure. Thanks to everyone on the NetBSD team, FreeBSD team, the Pachkit guys, 386BSD developers and all who made BSD available for the world! Great work! Sorry for the long posting, I just had to get this off my chest! Regards to all. -- Andre B. Skarzynski -- Information Technology, University of Stellenbosch -- abs@itu1.sun.ac.za ------- Tel: +27 21 8084293 Fax: +27 21 8084102 --------