From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 24 4:29: 7 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4B37C14EEF for ; Wed, 24 Nov 1999 04:29:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kwc@world.std.com) Received: from world.std.com (root@world-f.std.com [199.172.62.5]) by europe.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA22717 for ; Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:29:03 -0500 (EST) Received: (from kwc@localhost) by world.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id HAA04868; Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:28:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:28:01 -0500 (EST) From: Kenneth W Cochran Message-Id: <199911241228.HAA04868@world.std.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: 3.3-stable no longer booting *help* Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi, Problem(s): 1. FreeBSD (3.3-stable) no longer bootable, even though everything (partitions, disklabel?) appears to be "there" upon examination with boot/install floppy, but I can't see anything (yet) with the fixit floppy or CD. Is there a "reasonably safe" way for recovery? 2. Linux LILO (Slackware 4 & 7) gives error message when trying to set up BSD partition for booting. "First sector of /dev/sdb1 doesn't contain a valid partition signature" ?? (Quoting from memory; can't get actual text right now...) I think I can fix this if I can get FreeBSD back to working... I've been multi-booting FreeBSD, MS-DOS & Slackware 4 for months, just fine with LILO. Installation of Slackware 7 appears to have overwritten something in the FreeBSD partition/slice. Also, reinstallation of SW4 does the same thing. Partition (slice) layout is as follows: (/dev/sdb) 1. BSD (a5), start cyl 2, end cyl 197 2. Linux boot/root (/, type 83), start cyl 199, end cyl 203 3. DOS-extended (contains other Linux partitions) 4. (empty) LILO uses the MBR of sda, the 1st hdd (DOS is on that one). What I've done before (that worked) was to delete the FreeBSD partition (#1 in my case, SW boot is #2), install & configure my Linux kernel & add the FreeBSD partition back in just like it was before. Yes, this has always worked fine... The *major* thing I need to do now is getting FreeBSD bootable again. Linux is expendable for now, FreeBSD is not... -kc To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message