[1342] in netbsd-help mailing list archive
Re: bad disktab
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas C Sobczynski)
Mon Oct 19 09:42:02 1998
To: Robby Griffin <rmg@MIT.EDU>
Cc: netbsd-help@foobarbaz.MIT.EDU, rmg@foobarbaz.MIT.EDU,
xela@foobarbaz.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 19 Oct 1998 04:41:33 EDT."
<199810190841.EAA09457@foobarbaz.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:41:48 EDT
From: Thomas C Sobczynski <tcs@MIT.EDU>
> Hi, I've "installed MIT SIPB NetBSD-Athena 8.2 i386 on MITnet" this
> evening using an install floppy created by xela (no, I don't know which
> floppy image he used). I hit a couple of problems along the way, which I
> was able to get around with a little hackage.
>
> 1) When replacing linux with NetBSD on my machine, I planned to run
> fdisk from DOS in order to delete all the linux partitions, including
> a couple of logical drives in an extended partition created by linux.
> DOS / Win95 fdisk refused to believe that the logical drives existed,
> but also refused to believe that the extended partition was empty, so
> I couldn't completely clear the partition table. Having partially
> cleared it though, and having taken LILO off the MBR, I was stuck.
Is it possible your disk is too big for DOS to handle? I can't
remember the limit, was it 2GB?
> It'd be Really Nice (tm) if the NetBSD installation process
> included an optional partitioning step with an interactive fdisk
> though, instead of just expecting you to have already correctly
> un-partitioned the drive under another OS. But then, only other OSes
> "really" use the partition table, right? :| Perhaps a pointer to a
> more advanced DOS-based fdisk program, or a pointer to pointers (say,
> http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk) would be helpful along with the info on
> fips.
I'm told that making installation nicer is a big priority now.
