HD Geometry Issue...

[Christopher Turner]

Hello,

I have two 40Gig Seagate Baracuda IV's.

The physical drive is 1023/256/63
The BIOS detects it at 1024/255/63
The detection upon bootup detects it somewhere around 77,000(estimate)/255/63
The install program on the floppies said that 77,000 was wrong and that it's
attempting to use a more likely geometry of 45,000(estimate)/255/63.

The install program suggested that i should try what the BIOS detected the
drive as first before i accepted it's recommended geometry.  I did that and
it failed to write properly.

I then tried installing with what it wanted to use instead - the 45,000
figure.  It accepted data fine, but now when i software reboot, the machine
sounds a case alarm when the BIOS is set to boot from a BSD-installed drive.

I then blew away the OS and installed Win2k to run the HD tools.  It booted
fine to 2k.  I then tried to boot to the second drive that had BSD
installed.  Case alarm again!

Could this be a geometry issue?   Does anyone have some insight that they
could offer?  Are there issues with Seagate Baracudas & BSD?

Will it hurt the harddrive if i tried many different geometries?

Thanks!

-- 
Christopher Turner
christopher at contemplation.org