Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!bruce!cechew From: cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Minix & Hardcards Message-ID: <3445@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> Date: 10 Dec 90 05:59:55 GMT References: Organization: Monash Uni. Computer Science, Australia Lines: 36 In jeremiah@compulink.co.uk (Jonathan Allen) writes: >I'm still having trouble with this hardcard. MINIX fdisk tells me >the disc should have 3 heads and 27 sectors, and then the partition >table looks like this: >1 2# MINIX 256 0 1 762 2 26 20736 61801 41066 >2 3# MINIX 763 0 1 768 2 27 61803+ 62288 486 >3 4# 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 >4 1# A DOS-12 0 1 1 255 2 27 27 20735 20709- >Now, setting NR_SECTORS to 26 (as several people have suggested), and >typing: dd if=/dev/hd? of=/dev/null apart from taking some >time produced: If fdisk says `27 sectors' why set NR_SECTORS to `26'? In general, you should be skeptical about what fdisk tells you since it's only making an educated guess. You should find out the number of heads, sectors and cylinders from the spec sheet (if you don't have one, get hold of the drive listings in the dskutl directory on simtel-20). You should set NR_SECTORS to the number obtained from the spec sheet. You will then have to format the disk (I'm assuming that it is new). You can't do this under vanilla Minix so you'll either have to use the MsDos `debug' technique (as described in your controller card documentation) or use one of the programs distributed with such things as OnTrack's Disk Manager. Having done this, you can use fdisk, but remember to use the -s42 -h99 flags (substitute the number of sectors for 42, and the correct number of heads for 99). This might be the cause of your problems. Then again, it might not :-( Earl -- Earl Chew, Dept of Computer Science, Monash University, Australia 3168 EMAIL: cechew@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au PHONE: 03 5655447 FAX: 03 5655146 ----------------------------------------------------------------------