On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Doubletwist wrote:
> After discussing with the fine folks on #openbsd [freenode], we've
> come to the conclusion that either my mac [Dual 1Gzh G4 Quicksilver]
> is acting strange, or there is a problem with fdisk or there needs to
> be a short explaination added to the INSTALL.macppc file.
>
> Here's the situation: This machine works great with OSX. It works
> great with Debian, NetBSD or FreeBSD as an only OS [not dualbooted or
> anything].
>
> When I attempted to install OpenBSD using following INSTALL.macppc I
> ran into a snag. According to that doc: "For stand-alone (No Mac OS
> installed) or dedicated disks, the MBR installation method should be
> chosen and no additional prep is necessary."
>
> Unfortunately, while the geometry appears correct [and shows 76G disk
> size], it will only let me create up to 8G of partitions [slices?] in
> disklabel. [after the install automatically creates the partitions
> using fdisk]. And when I check in fdisk it again shows the geometry
> correctly, with a size of 76G, but when I edit or create an OpenBSD
> partition using either CHS or LBA it only says it is 8G.
>
> So after trying everything we could think of [wiping table with dd,
> repartitioning in Debian etc], I tried to use the HFS method [pdisk].
> This worked fine and it was able to see the entire disk.
>
> So I think one of the following is most likely true:
> A) Something's wrong with my Mac. I don't think so though since other
> BSD's and Linux all work just fine.
>
> B) Something is wrong [bug] with the 3.9 version of fdisk on macppc.
>
> C) fdisk is working as expected and the INSTALL.macppc documentation
> needs to be edited to include a note mentioning that the MBR/fdisk
> method doesn't actually work with >8G drives [at least on a dualg4
> quicksilver]
>
> D) I'm a complete moron and I'm missing some blatantly obvious piece
> of information. So is everyone on #openbsd. :)
You y just have to use the b command in disklabel to be able to use
the whole disk. Quoting from the INSTALL.macppc document:
If the disk is partitioned using MBR, the bootloader is
automatically installed. However because fdisk is not LBA
knowledgeable it may be necessary to run the 'b' command in
disklabel to allow OpenBSD to use the entire disk.
-Otto
>
>
> So if anyone can shed some light on this situation it would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Doubletwist
> aka Jim McD.
