FDisk won't detect or accept correct disk geometry from BIOS

[Charles Swiger]

On Jan 22, 2004, at 5:24 PM, Keith Kelly wrote:
> I already tried (with both 4.9 and 5.1) letting the FreeBSD install 
> proceed
> with fdisk's  geometry value assumptions, and what I always get is a
> non-bootable hard drive that gives the "Missing operating system" 
> error at
> boot.

Sufficiently old motherboards and BIOS versions don't understand the 
LBA addressing mode used by modern drives, and are limited to seeing 
approx 8.4 GB using the classic C/H/S values.  See whether the BIOS 
lets you configure the drive to LBA mode rather than "automatic", 
"C/H/S", or "extended C/H/S" mode.  If it doesn't, check to see whether 
there is a BIOS update available for your hardware.

It may be the case that this doesn't resolve the issue.  You can try to 
create a small (say 32MB) DOS partition using classic MS-DOS 6.x or a 
utility from the drive manufacturer, and verify whether you can boot 
into that.  If you can't and still get the "missing OS" error, you've 
got hardware issues and should consider replacing your MB.  If you can 
boot to a DOS partition on the hard disk, then try installing FreeBSD 
to the remaining space, leaving the DOS partition intact.  This will 
give you a better shot of using a geometry that your BIOS is able to 
boot.

[ The only hardware I've seen which required that kind of thing was a 
no-name P133 grade machine... ]

-- 
-Chuck