I just got a new driv for NetBSD, a Quantum Fireball TM1280 (OEM for
apple), and it's being a little uncooperative in the setup process.

The basic plan was to make 4 partitions, a small HFS of 50 megs or so, 36
swap (size of my machines physical ram), 100 meg root and the rest usr.

I formatted it with drive setup (1.5.1 -- same thing I used on the last
disk, a 160 meg IBM).  I started to get a little suspicious when mkfs
reported for each of the 3 BSD partitions stuff to the effect of:

>modesense of Current parameters, page 4(1)
>Num Heads 2
>Num Cylinders = 6810
>modesense of Current parameters, page 3(1)
>Bytes_Sector is 512
>Sectors per Track is 159
>Partition read, SCSIID = 1
>nsectors 159, ntracks 2, cylspares 0
>optimization space
>nsectors 159, ntracks 2, cylspares 0
>Disk parameters and geometry is reasonable enough to proceed
>Partition read, SCSIID = 1
>nsectors 159, ntracks 2, cylspares 0
>optimization space
>nsectors 159, ntracks 2, cylspares 0
>Disk parameters and geometry is reasonable enough to proceed
>formatting.....
>Warning: 314 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated
>disk:   102400 sectors in 323 cylinders of 2 tracks, 159 sectors
>    52.4MB in 21 cyl groups (16 c/g, 2.61MB/g, 640 i/g)
>super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
> 32, 5280, 10208, 15456, 20384, 25632, 30560, 35808, 40736,
> 45984, 50912, 56160, 61088, 66336, 71264, 76512, 81440, 86688,
> 91616, 96864, 101792,
>formatting complete
>Partition read, SCSIID = 1


The thing catching my attention -- 'Warning: xxx sectors in last cylinder
unallocated'.  Never had this one crop up before.

I went ahead anyway, to have the installer bomb out with an 'Error on SCSI
read 5()' when installing etc.  Since it had gotten as far as /var
something or other, I went along with the advice in the FAQ...use cpin for
the base set, move over enough to boot and unpack there.  (I did the
unpacking on the NetBSD side in single user, and used the --unlink flag.).

>From that standpoint, it went okay-- but fsck does not seem too happy.
After a few boot ups and downs, it finds a dirty filesystem - on each
partition --"Wrong Number of Blocks In Super Block", "Unallocated Blocks",
"Bad Summary Information"...nearly something for each stage of it's
checking procedure.

My next instinct was to try an SBC kernel -- fewer errors, but still
something every time I ran fsck.

As far as partitions go, there ended up being a total of seven (including
the untitled/and unknown ones).

So the next guess, was to try reformatting with different configurations --
move the mac partition to the back.  Go with 2 usr partitions, or one root
& usr, only use the first 800 meg or so of the drive.

Each attempt brought about the same warning messages from Mkfs (1.45)...so
I didn't bother continuing, just tried another partitioning scheme.  In the
process of doing this, when 'tabbing' through the partitions from Drive
Setup, it find a 5 kb uncllocated chunk, no matter how I try to arrange
things...

1 mac, root, usr, and swap left 7 partitions in the disklabel.

So, suggestions?  How concerned should I be with the mkfs console messages?
As an alternative, the vendor I bought the drive from threw i a copy of FWB
personal edition.  I might give that a go.

Are there certain flags I should consider checking the setting of (ie--
blind transfers, interleave, etc)...since FWB gives the option, and apple
doesn't.

I have to admit a little impatience -- ' I went with a 'regular' format as
oppsed to a low level format...I'll try a full low level/zero data format
as well.

I recall someone working around a similiar situation by editin ghte
disklabel and removing one of the partitions by hand, but I can't find the
post for the life of me....

I'll noddle a little more after work tonight.  Suggestions would be
appreciated.   Oh, this in a Quadra 605 with 1.3.2...

Thanks much!

Steve Revilak
revilak@umbsky.cc.umb.edu