Two days ago I was trying to pre-emptively solve this problem. A couple quickie comments that may help out at some point, plus related questions :
I tried to format a new hard drive using Win2K, knowing there were issues w/ NTFS under *BSD. So, decided to format using FAT32 under disk management. It failed three times (only after wasting 30 mins or so ''formatting''). First, I selected 512 byte sectors .. they were ''too small.'' Then I went with ''default,'' but then the volume size was ''too large.'' (for a 40 GB drive, the identical twin of which served as a Win98 drive without a blurp). Last FAT32 effort I chose teh remaining 1024 byte sector option with same result as 512 byte option. Of course, win2K was too stupid & lazy to evaluate these problems prior to committing to format & actually pretending to do it ... So, I am assuming that for future, I would use Win98 to create a FAT32 data partition that can be shared by Win/linux & *BSD. Or, possibly *BSD or linux to create such .. but I have my doubts regarding Win being able to access such. So, the question portion I wasn't able to answer through various google searches : Win insisted on ''writing a signature'' to the new drive (not used to install an OS .. just format as one large volume for data storage). I finally relented & let it since I was unable to find out what such a ''signature'' is and, more importantly, couldn't locate a utility that would allow me to write a signature (or its equivalent) to the drive. Will this affect my ability to let *BSD read the drive later ..? What is this ''signature'' thingie, and what is the lingo for it under linux/*BSD? Is there a utility that I can run under Win or from a bootable floppy that would let me intitate a virgin drive ? Maybe even partition & format in a ''universal'' FAT32 for DOS/Win/*nix/*BSD to all access for dfata read/writes? Other question on this is that I understand that linux has solutions to read/write to ntfs. Should *BSD not be able to emulate enough linux to use such a function ..? Linux & Win emulation are sold pretty hard as one of the positive points about *BSD. I was going with the FAT32 solution to simplify my life, not because I thought it was required. BTW, I had to format as NTFS since Win2K is my only option for the moment; first time I ever tried to use WinNT to format a volume or drive as FAT32 & was strikingly unsurprised when it failed at such a banal task. I am now operating under the assumption I must reformat later to use with *nix/*BSD, so this thread is quite interesting to me so I can do it right the next time .. hopefully within a week to ten days. -- datora serfing the stream electric _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
