Subject: help on disklabel?
To: None <>
From: David Wallis <>
List: port-alpha
Date: 09/25/2002 10:22:19
I'm new to BSD, but I have just installed NetBSD 1.5.2 on an
Alphastation 255 and I'm struggling with disklabel. I didn't set up the
second disk (sd1) during the install, so I've had a go at doing it
manually. I used (from the man page):

disklabel -i -I /dev/sd1

and created one 4.2BSD partition (a:) covering all the sectors ($). I
then made a new filesystem (newfs sd1a) and mounted it.

It worked fine, but on boot it says that sd1 is 512M, and I got < 200M.
I noticed that the disk geometry is different in disklabel to that given
at bootup. 

My question really, is where does the geometry in disklabel come from,
and why is it different?

I'm afraid I also don't understand section '3.4.5 Partitions' in the
install guide:

'In the this example we will use a disk with the following "real"
geometry, corresponding to the BIOS geometry of Figure 3-5.'

Can anyone point me in the direction of some docs that will explains all
this to me?

Many thanks.

Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute
Tel. +44 1908 652243, Fax +44 1908 858022