Chris G Demetriou wrote the following about "Re: oddities" on Wed May  8 18:36:11 1996
> 
> > For starters, it seems that the latest snapshot (don't know about the ones
> > before it) doesn't like certain drives.  For example, hooking up an
> > old but functional RZ23-E in an external enclosure, and then trying
> > to utilize that drive (extract a tar.gz file to it) would cause the
> > kernel to panic with a 'bad dir' error message.  If this needs to
> > be replicated so I can get the real error message, let me know. (But
> > it did newfs just fine.. *sigh*)
> 
> You don't even say what kind of machine you're using, and hence what
> SCSI driver you're using...
> 
> I assume you're using a TC machine.  Yes, I could very well believe
> that the SCSI driver doesn't like certain drives, but i've never seen
> it fail in _that_ way...

It is a TC machine.
 
> An error message, and a list of commands that you run to trigger it,
> would be appreciated.

I'll get more detailed output this sometime this weekend,
but it was basically, newfs /dev/sd0a ; mount /dev/sd0a /mnt ; 
tar zxvf /tmp/30megfile.tar.gz
 
> > Also, I took my trusty old config file, which doesn't have GENERIC defined,
> > and does tell it where to look for the root device:
> > 
> > config netbsd root on sd2 swap on sd2
> > 
> > But it still asks me for the root device when it boots...
> > Ideas?  What'd I'd overlook?
> 
> Sounds like you didn't 'make clean' before recompiling your kernel.

Did that.
 
> if you don't have GENERIC defined and aren't using 'swap generic', it
> shouldn't ever ask you for the root device.
> 
> The root device selection code is ... very bogus, but that's the way
> it works right now...

I slapped myself silly when I realized that I had set the prom to boot off
sd0, not sd2 (which is where i was installing the new kernel to).  Changed
the prom parameter, and all was happy.  *sigh*

-Chris
-- 
Chris Mattingly       | My views are not necessarily those of my employers
camattin@eos.ncsu.edu |
                      | "Good programmers write good code; great programmers
                      | 'borrow' good code."  -- Mike Gancarz