Re: Compaq Evo n800w

From: Bela Lubkin (belal_at_sco.com)
Date: 11/26/03 

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 09:28:40 GMT
To: scomsc@xenitec.ca

Jean-Pierre Radley wrote:

> Bela Lubkin typed (on Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 08:25:50AM +0000):

> | See:
> |
> | http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030812084145.GH24551@sco.com
>
> This article is also archived on Tony's site:
>
> http://www.aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/2289.html

Didn't know that. I don't see those because when I'm looking for
something I remember having posted, I search dejagoo, and it of course
doesn't know about derivative web-based presentations like Tony's
bofcusm.

I also prefer the dejagoo presentation, it's closer to the original
form.

> | The recipe in that article should work. Boot with "tools
> | disable=cha,ciss" to start it off.
>
> Thanks, Bela, that opened the door.
>
> While this laptop has a 60Gb hard drive, after telling OSR 5.0.7 at
> installation to use the entire disk for Unix, it presented me with a
> divvy table with 27.6 GB of blocks -- I seem to have lost half of the
> disk.

What geometry does it show for the disk?

It's probably wrong. Thus, a candidate for the "Wd Driver Supplement".
The readme mentions:

  * Better disk geometry configuration.

which in this case means "probably won't get the stupid wrong geometry
it used to get".

If you install the supplement, your disk's geometry will change. In the
past this would have made it unbootable, but the supplement also
supplies changes that make OSR5 much less sensitive to geometry issues
(these changes apply to SCSI as well as IDE). (*)

Once installed, the disk geometry will change, but the size of your Unix
partition will not. You can add a second Unix partition to use the rest
of the space. You can also expand the existing one, provided it is the
only or physically last partition on the disk. OSR5 `fdisk` doesn't
make this very easy: you can't just change the partition's end-block (as
you can in `divvy`). Instead you have to delete and re-add the
partition, an operation that you should perform with the utmost care.

There is one convenient escape hatch. If the partition was originally
created with "Use Entire Disk for UNIX", it will start on track 1 and
end wherever the disk used to end. In that case you can again choose
"Use Entire Disk for UNIX". The new partition exactly overlays the old
one.

For any future readers: we're talking about brain surgery here. It's
easy enough if you know what you're doing; it's very dangerous if you
are uncertain. I know that JP knows how to work this stuff; I also know
that he's talking about a machine that has just been installed and
cannot have much valuable stuff on it to be destroyed...

A caution: the Wd Supplement readme documents an install order. Follow
it. Briefly:

  If you don't intend to install OSR507UP1,

    OSR507; OSR507MP1; Wd Supplement; [optional LFPS]

  If you do intend to install OSR507UP1,

    OSR507; OSR507MP1; OSR507UP1; Wd Supplement; [optional LFPS]

This is because OSR507UP1 will back out parts of the Wd Supplement,
possibly leaving the system unbootable. An install order of "OSR507; Wd
Supplement; OSR507MP1; OSR507UP1; Wd Supplement again" will not work
because custom+ will prevent Wd Supplement from being installed a second
time.

(*)I recommend the recent pair of supplements, "Wd Driver Supplement"
and "Large Filesystem Performance Supplement", for all OSR507 systems.
"Wd" includes geometry independence improvements which apply to all
systems, including SCSI. LFPS has some performance aspects which could
potentially be seen on any system, large or not; and others which will
only be seen on large filesystems.

>Bela<

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