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From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: MINIX, hard disk controllers, and FDISK
Message-ID: <2345@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Apr-87 20:38:08 EST
Article-I.D.: ncoast.2345
Posted: Thu Apr  9 20:38:08 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 14:03:52 EST
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery)
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 33

I tried to bring up MINIX on my hard disk (/usr partition to HD) last
night on my ITT XTRA + WD1002 HD controller + ST225 HD.  It (needless to
say) did not work; in fact it wiped the MS-DOS partition.  (Someone should
clarify what /dev/hd* stand for.  Some systems use /dev/hd0 as the whole
disk and /dev/hd1 etc. as partitions.)

However, the experience was enlightening.

A "dd" of /dev/hd0 (MS-DOS partition; saw the boot block copyright message)
worked fine.  Ditto /dev/hd1, which was random data.  The interesting thing
is that /dev/hd1 DID NOT EXIST.  I told fdisk I had a 10MB MS-DOS partition
and NO OTHERS, leaving a 10MB hole to be filled eventually with three MINIX
filesystems.  (I have a PD partition editor I can upload if anyone wants it,
BTW.  It supports up to 4 partitions even under DOS 2.)

When I used the partition editor to create ``official'' partitions, MINIX
couldn't access the new partitions and stomped on /dev/hd0 when I tried to
mkfs /dev/hd1.

I conclude that MINIX is somehow misreading the FDISK information.  I will
be delving into the WINCHESTER code tonight to see what it's up to; alas, I
have no idea what the partition table written by fdisk is supposed to look
like, so I won't be able to do much with it.  However, hopefully this message
will help someone out there with the requisite knowledge get the HD driver
working correctly.

++Brando
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