Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 11:33:56 -0500 (EST) From: Marwan Fayed <s0121430@cs.laurentian.ca> To: Thierry Herbelot <herbelot@cybercable.fr> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: disappearing mount points after install Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.10.10001231120270.4690-100000@altair.cs.laurentian.ca> In-Reply-To: <3889ECB5.9E75171B@cybercable.fr>
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So, as it turns out I have found the answer it seems... a bit of a fluke, rather. I'll detail in short (if there is such a thing) so others are aware. As Thierry (and one other I think) suggested, a DOS partition is required. Before this was suggested to me I tried dual booting with a small DOS partition of 2 megs to save as much space as possible. This didn't work. Well, last night a chain of events forced me to realize that Win95, of course, uses partitions greater than 2 megs and that I should try using larger partitions (Thierry uses 20 on his machine). I first tried it with 5 megs... nothing. Then 10, 16, and still nothing. Finally when I expanded the DOS partition to 20 megs it worked. I can only assume this is how IBM manufactured their BIOS. And hey, it's 20 megs lost but at least it worked. I'm writing this after doing a dummy install with the minimal option so as to save time in installing. Let's hope my results aren't a lucky shot in the dark so that I can now re-install everything properly! Thanks for everyone's help. btw, who gets dinner!? <chuckle> Marwan ps. You all have impressed me so much that I think I will try to find ways to contribute to the freebsd project (as long as it doesn't interfere with school, of course <smile>) On Sat, 22 Jan 2000, Thierry Herbelot wrote: > Hello > > [-mobile trimmed] > > Marwan Fayed wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > I am a seasoned UNIX user but have been using freebsd for only about 6 > > months. I have posted this problem to freebsd-questions with no response > > so, figuring it must be a bug in the install program i'm going to try > > here. Oh, I would like to have traced the code to try to find the bug (if > > one exists) but being a senior year undergrad with a full course load and > > thesis, I have been left with little time... please forgive me. > > > > My problem is this. I am trying to install 3.3-R on an IBM Thinkpad 365XD > > (although I have received mail from a man in France who is having the same > > problem on a desktop). The installation runs completely smoothly but when > > I finish and reboot the machine reports no resident O.S. > > This may be due to a faulty BIOS : some BIOSes do not like at all not > having a DOS partition at the beginning of the disk (I have some HP PCs > with just 20 Megs of FAT at the start of the disk to keep them booting - > from <F2>, which is FreeBSD) > > > > > After trying many different things (including messing with the MBR, double > > and triple checking disk geometry, and using a Fixit disk to try to > > diagnose the problem), I booted from the install floppy to the main > > install menu. Rather than re-install all over again for the nth time I > > just entered the label editor. The partitions were still there but the > > mount points were lost. What appeared was > > this: > > > > <none> 40M // supposed to be root > > swap 84M // swap is obviously OK > > <none> 651M // supposed to be /usr > > The mount points for each partition are recorded in /etc/fstab : what > you are seeing is completely normal, as sysinstall has not read the > fstab file from the root partition of your disk. > > > > > This is clearly not what I designated so I tried relabelling the mount > > points, writing the information using 'w' and exiting install only to have > > the BIOS report no O.S. yet again! > > Try and leave a small DOS partition at the beginning of your disk, as > said above. > > > > > The machine is a P100,40M ram,810HD, standard PCI (as far as I have been > > able to tell/test). Has anyone encountered this or know the problem? > > > > Thanks a TON! > > > > Marwan :-) > > TfH > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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