Volker,

> The disklabel program is totally utterly completely broken.  I have
> never been able to get it to work properly.  All advice I have gotten
> boiled down to "you must be doing something wrong, do <advice>".  When
> I tried it, it wouldn't work.  This is with NetBSD-current as of
> September.

I agree with you.  However, it _really_ isn't hard to do this is you
have the right tools.  BTW, if you are not interested in splitting the
disk and using MS-DOS too, look at the 0.9 NetBSD install script to
see how disklabel was "tricked" into working (unfortunately, this
trick won't let you split the disk).

The "tool" that I have been using to share NetBSD and MS-DOS partitions
on one hard drive is the install disk from 386BSD.  386BSD was discussed for
month after month in Dr Dobbs Journal.  You should still be able to
get it in netland.  Unfortunately, I don't have an FTP site setup.
Since this seems to be such a general problem, perhaps someone wants
to make it available?  If all else fails, I have it and can mail it
to you.


Here are the steps to perform using the 386BSD install disk.
------------------------------------------------------------

Use FDISK under MS-DOS to create the DOS partition.  Do _not_ create
a partition for NetBSD.

Boot the 386BSD (0.1) install disk

It will tell you how much space you have left on the disk and ask
you how much of it you want to use.  Tell it the same number it told
you (ie. use all of the remaining space).

It will ask you if it should install intelf onto the disk.  Answer yes.

Allow it to install itself

At this point, you have a DOS partition and a NetBSD partition (with
some 386BSD stuff on the disk).

At this point, you just need to boot NetBSD, clean off the 386BSD
stuff, and load NetBSD.  Under NetBSD 0.9, it will (if I remember
correctly) install onto an existing partition (skipping the disasterous
partition step).  I have it easier since I have working systems available.

At any rate, I've followed this procedure for 4 machines so far.  I
hope it works for you.


- Rob Ginn
  rob@sun701.nadc.navy.mil