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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.uoknor.edu!news.nodak.edu!netnews1.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!uw-beaver!uhog.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!fu-berlin.de!zrz.TU-Berlin.DE!zib-berlin.de!news.tu-chemnitz.de!irz401!uriah.heep!news From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Western Digital 2.5GB IDE HD doesn't work under FreeBSD ! Date: 29 Apr 1996 21:56:26 GMT Organization: Private FreeBSD site, Dresden Lines: 44 Message-ID: <4m3dua$3db@uriah.heep.sax.de> References: <aak2.830530576@ra.msstate.edu> Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.heep.sax.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.6 aak2@Ra.MsState.Edu (Atif Ahmad Khan) writes: >I just bought a Western Digital 2.5GB hard drive and it doesn't >seem to work under FreeBSD ! >I went ahead and downloaded Mr. BIOS from www.mrbios.com and >that solved the problem. But you're aware that FreeBSD does use the BIOS just only for 10 seconds after you turn on your computer? It's 0xDEADBEEF after this... >Now FreeBSD is getting the right parameters and doesnt give me an What are ``the right parameters'' in your book? Basically, tell your BIOS anything you like. Make sure FreeBSD has got the very same idea about the number of sectors per track, and the number of tracks per cylinder. There's no such thing like ``the right geometry'', at least, you cannot express it in terms of a uniform C/H/S value. (The inner cylinders have less sectors per track than the outer ones.) Make sure your root file system (where the boot file named /kernel resides) is quite well below where the BIOS believes its 1024-cylinder high watermark is. If your drive is dedicated to FreeBSD, try the ``dangerously dedicated'' mode: select ``A)ll FreeBSD'' in the partition editor, and answer the next question with ``No''. (You'll be ask once more if you really want this.) This makes the FreeBSD slice start right at sector 0, using the entire disk (to the best of its knowledge), and one of the consequences is that you don't have to care for _any_ geometry of your drive anymore. Needless to say, i wouldn't waste my money in a poor and braindead IDE interface when buying a 2.5Gig drive, but you did it... -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)