> The netbsd root filesystem has to be at the start of the bios
> partition that you boot from, otherwise things just don't work!

That doesn't match my experience.

I have NetBSD/i386 machines set up with the root partition other than
at the beginning of the NetBSD MBR partition with no visible problem.
Here's an example (the laptop I'm typing this on):

disklabel wd0:
[...]
8 partitions:
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:    65142       63     4.2BSD      512  4096    16   # (Cyl.    0*- 68)
  b:   400680 12285000       swap                        # (Cyl. 13000 - 13423)
  c: 12685617       63     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0*- 13423)
  d: 12685680        0     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 13423)
  e: 12219795    65205     4.2BSD     1024  8192    80   # (Cyl.   69 - 12999)
  f: 12285000        0     4.2BSD     1024  8192    64   # (Cyl.    0 - 12999)

fdisk wd0:
[...]
Partition table:
0: <UNUSED>
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
    start 63, size 12685617 (6194 MB), flag 0x80
	beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
	end: cylinder  547, head 127, sector 63

mount points:
/dev/wd0e on / type ffs (local)
/dev/wd0a on /kernels type ffs (local)

Note that my root partition - wd0e - starts at sector 65205, nowhere
near the beginning of the NetBSD area (sector 63).

Now, I am using a relatively old version, but surely NetBSD hasn't gone
_backwards_ in this respect.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B