1994-09-17 23:02:58 +04:00
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NOTE: If you wish to install NetBSD on your whole disk, i.e. you do
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not want DOS or any other operating system to reside on your hard
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disk, you can skip this section and go on to the section that
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describes installation, below. If you're upgrading your system from a
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previous release of NetBSD, you shouldn't have proceeded directly to
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the section about upgrading; you need none of the information
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presented here.
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First and foremost, before beginning the installation process, MAKE
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SURE YOU HAVE A RELIABLE BACKUP of any data on your hard disk that you
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wish to keep. Repartitioning your hard disk is an excellent way to
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destroy important data.
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Second, if you are using a disk controller which supports disk
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geometry translation, be sure to use the same parameters for NetBSD as
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for DOS or the other operating systems installed on your disk. If you
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do not, it will be much harder to make NetBSD properly coexist with
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1995-11-29 02:56:58 +03:00
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them. Utilities exist which will print out the disk geometry which DOS
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sees; some versions of DOS "fdisk" also do this. If you have an "EIDE"
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hard disk, DOS and NetBSD probably won't see the same geometry, and you
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must be careful to find out the DOS geometry and tell NetBSD about it
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during the installation.
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1994-09-17 23:02:58 +04:00
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1995-11-29 02:56:58 +03:00
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Third (but related to the second point above), if you are using a hard
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disk with more sectors than DOS or your controller's BIOS supports without
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some kind of software translation utility or other kludge, you MUST
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BE SURE that all partitions which you want to boot from must start below
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cylinder 1024 by the BIOS's idea of the disk, and that all DOS partitions
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MUST EXIST ENTIRELY BELOW cylinder 1024, or you will either not be able to
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boot NetBSD, not be able to boot DOS, or you may experience data loss or
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filesystem corruption. Be sure you aren't using geometry translation that
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you don't know about, but that the DOS "fdisk" program does!
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Fourth, use the DOS "fdisk" program or another partition editor to
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1994-09-17 23:02:58 +04:00
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repartition your hard disk. Create a partition of at least 40M in
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1995-11-29 02:56:58 +03:00
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size (preferably much larger), and note its starting offset and its
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length (preferably in units of disk sectors or cylinders). You will
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need that information when installing NetBSD (and if the offset and
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length are not in those units, you will have to convert them). Once
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you have created the new NetBSD partition, mark it as having a
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partition type of 0xA5 (165, in decimal). If you used "fdisk" to
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partition your disk, you will probably have to use a different
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partition editor to mark the partition with the correct type.
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1994-09-17 23:02:58 +04:00
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Finally, do whatever is necessary to restore order to the partition
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you took space away from. If it was a DOS partition, you probably
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will need to use "format" to create a new file system on it, and then
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restore your important files from your backups. Other operating
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systems will have different needs; most will need to reformat the
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partition, and if it was their "main" partition, will probably need
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to be reinstalled.
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Your hard disk is now prepared to have NetBSD installed on it, and
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you should proceed with the installation instructions.
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