Very Computer

by **Ultim** » Fri, 11 May 2001 11:27:29

Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?

Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
(My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

by **Janne Johansso** » Fri, 11 May 2001 16:41:36

> Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
> My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?
> Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
> (My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

The FAQ seems to have an example of a large-disk installation.

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html

This just might help. Otherwise, provide more information on your
problems.

Do keep in mind that "weird things", like booting from a partition
on the far end of the 8G IDE-disk limit is a feature your BIOS
need to have to be able to load OpenBSD at all. If your BIOS can't
do that, you will need to have it closer to the start of the disk.

--
-"Some mornings it's just not worth gnawing through the straps."

by **Ultim** » Sat, 12 May 2001 01:41:33

>> Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
>> My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?
>> Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
>> (My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

>The FAQ seems to have an example of a large-disk installation.

>http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html

>This just might help. Otherwise, provide more information on your
>problems.

>Do keep in mind that "weird things", like booting from a partition
>on the far end of the 8G IDE-disk limit is a feature your BIOS
>need to have to be able to load OpenBSD at all. If your BIOS can't
>do that, you will need to have it closer to the start of the disk.

Um, linux worked fine at the end of my HD...

And i have a 20 GB HD, not a 8GB HD...

I am going to try to force the values of the clyinder sizes with the fdisk
command:
fdisk -c 2498 -h 255 -s 63 wd0
and the Install.i386 file said that OpenBSD only supported sector sizes of
512 bytes. My sector size is 512 bytes, so hopefully, this will work.

My hardrive is a Quantium Fireball LM20.5GB HD, if you are wondering.

by **Julio Uehar** » Sun, 13 May 2001 14:15:36

> Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
> My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?
> Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
> (My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

Doing a dmesg on my OpenBSD it gives the following,
.
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 8297MB, 16387 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 16992864
.
but my installation notes indicates that the harddisk extends from
cylinder 1 to 1023. This seems to be the result of setting the BIOS
to LBA. FreeBSD Booteasy is the boot manager and has no problem in booting
FreeBSD, Slackware and OpenBSD, no Winxx:-).

Hope this helps,

-- Julio

by **Ultim** » Sun, 13 May 2001 14:37:34

>> Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
>> My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?

>> Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
>> (My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

>Doing a dmesg on my OpenBSD it gives the following,
>.
>wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 8297MB, 16387 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 16992864
>.
>but my installation notes indicates that the harddisk extends from
>cylinder 1 to 1023. This seems to be the result of setting the BIOS
>to LBA. FreeBSD Booteasy is the boot manager and has no problem in booting
>FreeBSD, Slackware and OpenBSD, no Winxx:-).

>Hope this helps,

>-- Julio

Helps Quite a bit...
Now I know exactly what to do, i just sure hope that Disklabel will work...
(Or do i have to make 4 FreeBSD bookdisks for this to work?)
Thank you!

by **Janne Johansso** » Wed, 16 May 2001 17:02:13

> >> Does OpenBSD support cylinder sizes above 1024?
> >> My hardrives cylinder size is about 2498?
> >> Any suggestions on how i could get this to work in fdisk?
> >> (My Disk Geometery is: 2498/255/63)

> >The FAQ seems to have an example of a large-disk installation.

> >http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html

> >This just might help. Otherwise, provide more information on your
> >problems.

> >Do keep in mind that "weird things", like booting from a partition
> >on the far end of the 8G IDE-disk limit is a feature your BIOS
> >need to have to be able to load OpenBSD at all. If your BIOS can't
> >do that, you will need to have it closer to the start of the disk.

> Um, linux worked fine at the end of my HD...
> And i have a 20 GB HD, not a 8GB HD...

I didn't say you had a smaller drive, I said "booting from the far end
of the 8G IDE-disk limit". There is a common problem in x86-hardware
and/or BIOSes that it doesn't like booting from stuff beyond 8G on IDE
disks. Now, if you have a 20G drive and doesn't want to allocate the
whole drive to OpenBSD, chances are high that you'll place OpenBSD at
the end, and have problems with your BIOS not being able to get
the kernel from beyond 8G.

On the other hand, if you have your root partition within 8G, then
your BIOS will be able to boot the kernel, and as soon as the kernel
is in place, you can use large drives as much as you like.

Same goes for Linux ofcourse. As soon as the linux kernel is in place
it can use all of the disk.

--
-"Some mornings it's just not worth gnawing through the straps."