ISC Installation problems partially solved

[Darryl Richman]

In article <871 at augean.ua.OZ.AU> gvokalek at augean.ua.OZ.AU (George Vokalek) writes:
"Problem: My hard disk has 1661 cylinders and ISC bombs if I try to
"        make the unix partition use cylinders above 1024, despite
"        the fact that it states explicitly that it can manage it.
"
"        The error I was getting was:
"
"        PANIC: athd_int never got non-busy, got 0x000000D1
"
"        This error would always occur during the construction of
"        /usr2 (or whichever file system crossed the 1024 boundard,
"        I presume).  My disk is a 1661cyl x 53 sec/tk x 15 head
"        unit, with a WD1007V ESDI controller.

The problem is that a 1007V looks just like a 1007A, but it reserves
the last two cylinders on the disk, unlike the A.  Sometimes trying to
use the whole disk works out anyway, but usually reads work and writes
on the last cylinder fail.

The solution is, while installing, to not let Unix use the last two
cylinders.  This can be accomplished in one of three ways:

	- using the low level formatter on the 1007 and telling it to
	use a translated geometry

	- setting up the Unix partition so that it doesn't use the last
	two cylinders

	- not accepting the default disk parameters and decreasing the
	number of cylinders by 2.

These work arounds should allow you to use the full extent of your
disk, while providing the benefits of being able to map out bad
sectors.  We are working on a fix to the driver so that it can
distinguish between the two controllers.

		--Darryl Richman
-- 
Copyright (c) 1990 Darryl Richman    The views expressed are the author's alone
darryl at ism780c.isc.com 		      INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.-A Kodak Company
 "For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong."
	-- H. L. Mencken