Bernd Sieker <bsieker@freenet.de> writes:

> On my system there are no device nodes /dev/rwd1 and/or /dev/wd1, but
> only for the individual partitions, i. e. wd1a, wd1d, ...
> 
> Partition "a" is usually reserved for BSD root partition. If the
> system has no BSD disklabel, the kernel will make one up showing the
> "d" partition for the whole disk, and also show an entry for an MSDOS
> partition, if there is one.
> 
> If there is no one, create a new DOS partition table with fdisk and
> create one partition of type 6 ("big FAT partition"). 

OK, thanks for the help.  I've done this, here is the output from
disklabel:

# disklabel wd1
# /dev/rwd1d:
type: ESDI
disk: Key Technology C
label: fictitious
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 32
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 512
cylinders: 1000
total sectors: 512000
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0 

8 partitions:
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
  a:   512000        0      MSDOS                        # (Cyl.    0 - 999)

This seems reasonable, and matches what fdisk reports.

> Disklabel should then tell you which partition letter you should use
> to access that DOS partition, then you should be able to do
> 
> newfs_msdos [options] /dev/rwd1e

Here is what I've tried, with no luck:

# newfs_msdos /dev/rwd1a
newfs_msdos: Cannot determine size, must use -f format
# newfs_msdos /dev/wd1a  
newfs_msdos: Cannot determine size, must use -f format
# newfs_msdos -f 256000 /dev/wd1a
newfs_msdos: Cannot find format description for 256000 KB

I must be doing something simple wrong.

-russ