diff --git a/HOWTO b/HOWTO
index 8da5527..0f7909d 100644
--- a/HOWTO
+++ b/HOWTO
@@ -919,10 +919,10 @@
 		random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
 		new random offset without looking at past io history. This
 		means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
-		some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
-		is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
-		blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
-		complete rewrites of blocks.
+		some blocks may be read/written more than once. If this option
+		is used with verify= and multiple blocksizes (via bsrange=),
+		only intact blocks are verified, i.e., partially-overwritten
+		blocks are ignored.
 
 softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
 		enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
diff --git a/init.c b/init.c
index bb53a1e..c210ad2 100644
--- a/init.c
+++ b/init.c
@@ -596,8 +596,7 @@
 	if (o->norandommap && o->verify != VERIFY_NONE
 	    && !fixed_block_size(o))  {
 		log_err("fio: norandommap given for variable block sizes, "
-			"verify disabled\n");
-		o->verify = VERIFY_NONE;
+			"verify limited\n");
 		ret = warnings_fatal;
 	}
 	if (o->bs_unaligned && (o->odirect || td->io_ops->flags & FIO_RAWIO))