problems with disk geometry

[Kamal R. Prasad]

I found out that my samsung 1604N hard disk can be partitioned  
without any problem (it is now the primary master with a dvd drive as  
slave).
.
The problem lies with disklabel. If I use 'A' option in the  
sysinstall program's label section,.
it expects to find in /dev ad0s1a, ad0s2a etc.. but these don't show  
up in /dev and the labelling procedure fails. Can someone tell me how  
to fix this or if this is a bug in this release of freebsd?

thanks
-kamal


On 06-Oct-05, at 9:57 PM, Gayn Winters wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org
>> [mailto:owner-freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Kamal
>> R. Prasad
>> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 8:56 AM
>> To: freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org
>> Subject: problems with disk geometry
>>
>>
>> hello,
>>
>>   Im trying to install FreeBSD 6.0 beta5 on a samsung SP1604N hard
>> disk of about 160 GB.
>> The installer complains that it has a problem with the disk
>> geometry.
>> The exact message is given below:-
>> ------------------------------------------
>> A geometry of 310101/16/63 is incorrect for ad1. Using a more likely
>> geometry. If this geometry is incorrect.. pl. consult the
>> hardware guide
>> -------------------------------------------
>> fdisk goes through the process of creating the reqd slices
>> and when I
>> try to commit the new partition table -it says it cannot write to /
>> dev/ad1.
>>
>> Can someone tell me how to get past this problem?
>>
>> thanks
>> -kamal
>>
>
> I doubt it is your disk geometry.  You will probably need to provide a
> little more information.  I assume you've got another OS on /dev/ 
> ad0 and
> that you are letting sysinstall put 6.0 onto /dev/ad1 as a  
> (dangerously)
> dedicated drive?  What does the BIOS report?  How old are the machine
> and its BIOS?  What does fdisk say when run either standalone or from
> the first OS?
>
> -gayn
>
>
>

Kamal R. Prasad
UNIX systems consultant
http://www.kamalprasad.com/
kamalp at acm.org