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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.mathworks.com!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!tribune.usask.ca!skorpio3.usask.ca!bwm260 From: bwm260@skorpio3.usask.ca (Bradley W Mazurek) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: Geometry Translation on IDE 1.2Gb Date: 13 Jun 1995 14:48:19 GMT Organization: University of Saskatchewan Lines: 54 Message-ID: <3rk8fj$5pa@tribune.usask.ca> References: <3rhvl0$ge2@hustle.rahul.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: skorpio3.usask.ca X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] C. A. Piepenbring (jimi@rahul.net) wrote: : my "wd0: wdcontrol: geometry failed: status 0 error 0" error : when attempting to install. : Has anyone successfully partitioned an IDE 1.2Gb between DOS : and BSD and gotten around the geometry translation OR the : 1023 cylinder limit on a DOS fixed disk? Any assistance : would be greatly appreciated. Not quite. I was getting the exact same error with my 1.08Gb drive, so I assume the same fix will work. My solution did require more complete partition editing tools than were available through pfdisk. The disk editor included in PC Tools was excellent. First, I had to change the IDE translation mode in my BIOS. Rather than using LBA, I used Standard CHS. When I went in to reparition the disk for DOS, DOS reported that the drive was only 523Mb (1023cyl, 64h, 63sec/tr), rather than the true geometry (2100cyl, 64h, 63sec/tr) but I didn't worry about it. Next I created my DOS partition. I partitioned the disk so that cylinders 1-999 were DOS. That left cylinders 1000-1023 for NetBSD. Lots of room! :) Anyway, on a hunch, a friend and I were hoping NetBSD didn't look at the ending cylinder entry (1023) of the partition table. Next I calculated the length of the partition from 1000-2100, put this into the partition table using the disk editor. The numbers weren't consistent in the parition table, but DOS ignored the Non-DOS partition, NetBSD was happy...and we've (DOS, NetBSD and my remaining hair) all lived happily ever after.... My suggestion is to try to find an IDE translation mode in your BIOS for which the number of heads and number of sectors per track is consistent with the true geometry of your hard drive. Then perhaps this trick will work. : I did get the kernel to install ONE time, and had a usable : NetBSD fixed disk boot using the actual geometry (2448 cyl) but : it stomped the DOS partition (in fact the entire partition table, : wiping the first 3 entries and creating a bogus full-disk : entry in #4). When I restored the first two partition : table entries, NetBSD would no longer boot (cannot find : /netbsd or /onetbsd). This post has been like a recount of a horrid, horrid 2 weeks of my life. Some good did come out of it though. A local guru (thanks Greg) helped me out quite a lot. He even came up with a nifty way of installing NetBSD from my DOS partition. Didn't need to use floppies, tape, ftp, NFS or anything. Just pulled them off the DOS drive... Anyway, good luck, Bradley Mazurek bwm260@cs.usask.ca