*BSD News Article 62934


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From: reilly@zeta.org.au (Andrew Reilly)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: 2.10 Install with AIC-7850 Fast SCSI-2 problem: hangs writing disk partition
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 96 13:05:13 GMT
Organization: Lake DSP Pty Ltd
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Hi,

I have a new system with an Adaptec AIC-7850 SCSI-2 controller on the motherboard.
This is supposed to be similar to the AHA-2940 PCI card, but with fewer SCBs.
Anyway, the installation disks recognised the controller, and seemed to be going fine
(which is much better than I managed with NetBSD1.1) right up to the point where I
said "go ahead, do it."  It put up an informational message to the effect that it was
writing the disk label info, and then hung with the drive activity light on.  This was
from the "Novice" install.

(More info: I have a 1G Fujitsu M1606S drive, with the geometry as set up by whoever
put DOS on it: 132 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors.  This is obviously bogus, but
will it break anything?  I used fips.exe to re-partition it from all-DOS to 300M DOS (up to
"track 38" in partition (slice?) 1, and the rest (700M or so) in slice 2.)

I then went at it a bit more deliberately (Custom config) and tried to use the Write options
of the disklabel and partition/newfs menus.  The partition label write calaimed to go OK,
but future re-boots showd that the second slice was still labelled as DOS.  The W command
at the partition menu returned the error:

Unable to make new root filesystem on /dev/rsd0a!
Comand Returned Status 1

Any suggestions?  Is there a newer install kernel floppy image somewhere that can talk to
my controller/drive combination more successfully?

Thanks in advance,

Andrew Reilly.


Andrew Reilly: reilly@zeta.org.au                            +61 2 559 5029 (h)
36 Acton St.            Senior DSP Design Engineer           +61 2 233 8655 (w)
Hurlstone Park          Lake DSP Pty Ltd                Fax: +61 2 233 8656 (w)
NSW 2193 Australia      GPO Box 4067, Sydney 2001            andrew@lake.com.au