On 10.07.02, 07:48:28, alias@netbsd.org wrote:
> 
> Bernd Sieker <bsieker@freenet.de> writes:
> > 
> > I had assumed it would create one d and one e entry for whole disk and
> > DOS partition. Is 512000 really the actual size of the usable area of
> > the card?
> 
> Well, it's a 256MB card.  I may have specified the size incorrectly.

They usually have even less, which might be the problem in your
case. The partition exceeds the physical device.

My "256 MB" card only has 500736 sectors, which makes it only 244.5
MB. fdisk should tell you some disk geometry, and multiplying the
numbers of cylinders, heads and sectors/track gives you the total
number of sectors. My CF card reports:

  NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
  cylinders: 978 heads: 16 sectors/track: 32 (512 sectors/cylinder)

  BIOS disk geometry:
  cylinders: 978 heads: 16 sectors/track: 32 (512 sectors/cylinder)

Also, for some reason, the first partition often starts at sector 32,
although I'm not sure that's actually neccessary.

> 
> Of course, the card manufacturers don't really mean megabytes, but
> instead they start using 1000 along the way somewhere instead of 1024.

Strictly speaking _mega_ means exactly one million, like _kilo_ means
exactly one thousand. That's why I pronounce it "Em"-Bytes or
"Kay"-Bytes, when I mean 2^20 or 2^10. (It was recently suggested to
use "KiBiBytes", or "MeBiBytes", to indicate binary base, but I find
that rather silly.)

> 
> Nope, I'm using 1.5.2.  I guess that's why it doesn't work!  I
> mentioned this in my very first email, sorry for the confusion.

I'm not sure I read your first message. Then you're probably out of
luck for formatting bigger "disks".

As far as I remember, mformat of the mtools will also format floppy
disks only. That leaves only Windows, or the PDA or Camera, or
whatever, which should be fine if the partition size is correct.


-- 
Bernd Sieker

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