On Sep 29,  9:06pm, Phil Nelson wrote:
} 
} >Okay, so set the first partition in the MBR to cover the whole disk minus
} >the first track, type it to NetBSD, and put a disklabel in that partition.
} 
} This is what sysinst does if the whole disk is selected.  The problem is
} knowing that is the first track in relation to the BIOS geometry for
} that disk.  This is the real problem that needs to be addressed.  
} 
} I may generate a sysinst that will skip only the first sector and try
} that road again.  That would eliminate the need to worry with getting

     Why stop there?  Don't skip any sectors and start NetBSD in the
first sector on the disk.  If NetBSD is going to use the whole disk
then you don't need an MS-DOS style partition table.  This has always
worked fine for me.

} big enough to cover /dev/?d?a, it would work.  (Assuming it is true
} that BIOSes don't really complain at booting something from the first
} track.)

     The BIOS doesn't care.  It simply loads and executes the code in
the first sector.  It's up to that code to figure what to do next, and
if it complains about booting something in the first track, you can
simply replace it with generic code.

}-- End of excerpt from Phil Nelson