Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!shadooby!sharkey!cfctech!rphroy!trux!car From: car@trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: How to use a hard disk with Minix (LONG) Message-ID: <313@trux.UUCP> Date: 4 Dec 89 20:47:24 GMT References: <312@trux.UUCP> <89332.220027TAR@MAINE.BITNET> <17535@bcsaic.UUCP> Organization: Central Cartage, Sterling Hgts., MI Lines: 79 In article <17535@bcsaic.UUCP>, paula@bcsaic.UUCP (Paul Allen) writes: > In article <89332.220027TAR@MAINE.BITNET> TAR@MAINE.BITNET (Thom Rounds) writes: > >In article <312@trux.UUCP>, car@trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) says: > >> [He's having trouble partitioning his hard disk under 1.2 and finally > >> ended up putting a file system on /dev/hd0.] > > My God!! You don't even know what FDISK is for, and you went and did that > >ANYWAY??! > > Aw, heck! I don't think a flame was called for. Chris just needs to > know how to get the 1.2 fdisk to work. I didn't have a machine with > a hard disk until I got 1.3, so I'm not sure what Chris' problem is. I should probably clarify why I used /dev/hd0 to build a file system. I have a XT clone and Minix 1.2. When using DOS, I have (2) 10Mb drives and a HD controller. When I really want to use my computer (:-) I remove the HD controller and put in a second HD controller that has 1 5Mb and 1 10Mb disk hung off it. (That's 2 controllers and 4 drives). xt_wini and at_wini don't work at all with my HD controller (OMTI 5510). bios_wini seemed to need alot of stuff from Minix 1.3 which I don't have yet. I borrowed a 2nd floppy drive to work on xt_wini. I got xt_wini to read sectors/blocks from the 5Mb HD by hard-coding stuff in xt_wini.c:init_params(). At that point, I did not have xt_wini.c:init_params() working enough to read the partition table. I also didn't have Minix's fdisk handy. I decided to build a file system on hd0 as if it were a floppy. Since it worked and I was tired of I loaded up the HD with the necessary stuff to continue my xt_wini development on the HD. Now I have attached a 10Mb drive to the system as well. Using the 5Mb drive (hd0) as a development platform I will work with fdisk (1.2), xt_wini (1.2), and the 10Mb disk in order to get xt_wini's partitioning code to work. [Thanks to all who have steered me to Minix's fdisk. ] When I have the partition stuff working on the 10Mb disk, I'll move the development platform from the 5Mb disk to the 10Mb disk. Then, I'll fdisk the 5Mb disk into a "correct" disk structure. Yes - both disks are blank. No - I don't care about DOS. > >>2) If you only have a 5Mb hard disk to use, what's the best way to use it? Thanks to all who suggested using /usr as the prime mount point. > >>3) I'd like to the RAM disk for as little as possible (if at all). This statement touched a tender spot. :-) Following the advice of a couple people I'll probably create a small partition that contains the ROOT image. This image would then be loaded as the RAM disk. It was suggested that the contents of /bin be moved to /usr/bin to reduce the size of the RAM disk. > >>Observation: > >>Minix seems to do alot of seeks back to the start of the file > >>system, cyl 0, super block, or whatever. > >>Why does the head keep returning "home"? How can this be reduced? When I attached the 10Mb disk this problem stopped! The 5Mb disk no longer seeks home after each read. Aside from attaching the 10Mb disk I removed the terminating resistor array from the 5Mb disk. Wow is it fast now! Here's another one: When I boot DOS from floppy the 10Mb disk is C: and the 5Mb disk is D:. When I boot Minix the 10Mb disk is hd5 and the 5Mb disk is hd0. Are these backwards or what? [ Yes, /dev/hd0 is 3,0 and /dev/hd5 is 3,5 ] car. -- Christopher A. Rende Central Cartage (Nixdorf/Pyramid/SysVR2/BSD4.3) uunet!edsews!rphroy!trux!car Multics,DTSS,Unix,Shortwave,Scanners,StarTrek trux!car@uunet.uu.net Minix,PC/XT,Mac+,TRS-80 Model I,1802 ELF "I don't ever remember forgetting anything." - Chris Rende