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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBsd in the press (Inforworld article)
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 21:08:04 -0700
Organization: Me
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Message-ID: <31786324.243A080A@lambert.org>
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<3176B246.3BE4124A@lambert.org> <4l7e85$520@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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J Wunsch wrote:
] >There is no way libdisk can know the geometry of a new disk
] >such that you can use the BSD fdisk to create a BSD partition
] >and later go back with the DOS fdisk and create a DOS partition
] >on the same drive.
]
] Ah, that's been your point... Ok, as you know, the mapping between
] the BIOS geometries (as been passed from the bootstrap) and the BSD
] drivers is missing. Yep.
]
] However, that's usually only a problem for the boot disk, not for
] adding a second disk. :)
Unless it's on a different controller.
Unless the translation is different because the controller tries
to do a "best fit" to avoid wasting sectors.
Unless the driver for the second controller is loaded from
your CONFIG.SYS file instead of BIOS POST.
Unless your first disk is using OnTrack Disk Manager 6.x/7.x.
Unless your second disk, which doesn't need it, came with
Disk Manager pre-installed because that what they do with
large IDE drives, and they assume that the disk will be
the only disk in the system because who needs more than 1G?
Unless you have installed Windows 95's "VFAT32", which wants
a different physical-to-logical device mapping layer than
the one that reads standard DOS partition tables (because
it doesn't use one).
There are a lot of failure modes; BIOS geometry passing is
one of the most annoying, but it's by no means the only one.
8-(.
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.