From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Dec 18 04:45:11 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id EAA24303 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 18 Dec 1995 04:45:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from buffnet1.buffnet.net (mmdf@buffnet1.buffnet.net [205.246.19.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA24298 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 1995 04:45:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from buffnet5.buffnet.net by buffnet1.buffnet.net id aa15645; 18 Dec 95 7:46 EST Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 07:46:48 -0500 (EST) From: steve hovey To: Michael Smith cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Boot problems (was Re: Western Digital boot failures ) In-Reply-To: <199512180424.OAA06718@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, Michael Smith wrote: > Marty Leisner stands accused of saying: > > > > > > > > > When I use the booteasy option, I keep hitting F1 over and over, > > > > nothing ever happens other than repeating the "BSD F?" banner. > > This is a classic symptom of incorrect installation geometry. > > I can't count the number of times I've said this : > > READ THE INSTALLATION NOTES! SET THE GEOMETRY IN THE INSTALLER TO MATCH > WHAT YOUR BIOS THINKS THE DISK IS. DO NOT GUESS. DO NOT PASS GO. > DO NOT COLLECT $200. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Dont beat up the guy - you will continue to have to say this until there is a utility for this sort of thing. It is not clear to most people (yes, that is a general sweeping statement) how one is supposed to divine the correct geometry. In many instances Ive left the primary drive an IDE for lack of being able to get freebsd to not choke on scsi drives for which I was not clarvoyant enough to produce a 'correct' geometry. Is there no way for a utility to ask the damn bios what it thinks it is, thus making it able to tell the user if no other damn thing is possible?