>>> Indeed. Experiments here show that plugging in a pci <-> sata card to >>> avoid the Intel SATA chip makes the disk work fine. >>> >>> Disks smaller than 1TB also work. So I'm guessing it's something >>> magical about 4K-sector disks presenting themselves as 512-byte sector >>> disks that is the source of problems. I'm still a bit fogged as to how >>> a disklabel triggers the problem. >>> >> >> I also saw these problems with a Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB SSD drive. I >> don't know which sector size these drives use internally... >> >> Actually, I didn't get any of my drives to work with OpenBSD on this >> mainboard. I don't know if it helps -- I've also unsuccessfully tested a >> 320GB WD3200AAKS from 08/2010. >> >> Best Regards >> Andreas > > OK, I got it booting. In a fairly useless config, but ... > > Booting from a -current amd64 cd55.iso cd-rom, I (E)dited the MBR so > that the OpenBSD 'A6' partition started on sector 2048, and was 500MB > in size. > > I accepted the auto configured disklabel (i.e. all space in 'a') and > installed w/o X, Compiler or games sets. > > Removing the CD and rebooting got me to the usual login prompt. > > I'm going to experiment some more, but I'm now suspicious that the old > '512MB' limit is coming into play somehow. > > So for those following along, try a tiny OpenBSD MBR partition > starting at sector 2048 and see what happens. And of course if it > works, how big can your partition be before it stops working.
I've tried this and the system boots with 500MB, 1000MB, 2000MB but doesn't with 4000MB. Since 2GB is way too small, I'm going to buying a pci <-> sata card to avoid the Intel SATA chip. I'm thinking of buying a HighPoint Rocket 620 card. Anybody using this card with OpenBSD? Or recommendations for a different pci <-> sata card? Kind regards, Martijn Rijkeboer
