From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Oct 13 04:08:40 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA11181 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 04:08:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ceia.nordier.com (m1-23-dbn.dial-up.net [196.34.155.23]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA11172 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 04:08:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rnordier@nordier.com) Received: (from rnordier@localhost) by ceia.nordier.com (8.8.7/8.6.12) id NAA03092; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:04:56 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier Message-Id: <199810131104.NAA03092@ceia.nordier.com> Subject: Re: BETA problems... In-Reply-To: <199810130120.SAA01157@dingo.cdrom.com> from Mike Smith at "Oct 12, 98 06:20:39 pm" To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:04:49 +0200 (SAT) Cc: karpen@ocean.campus.luth.se, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mike Smith wrote: > > I just tried to install the newest BETA on current.freebsd.org on a > > friend's computer. It worked, let's say, less then satisfactory. Somehow > > the installation got messed up, but the main problem was that he had two > > IDE drives. Both set to master, on separate comntrollers. On wd0 he had > > Window and on wd2 he wanted FreeBSD... That, however, was not much to > > FreeBSD's liking. > > > > At the "boot:" prompt, it would find the kernel at bios unit 1, but for > > some inane reason it fails to recognize that the disk is NOT wd1, but wd2. > > So you would manually have to enter "1:wd(2,a)kernel" or it would assume > > "1:wd(1,a)kernel", and panic when trying to mount root. Why is this, and > > shouldn't it be fixed? > > > > _Is_ it fixed in new boot code, perhaps? > > No. It's almost impossible to get the distinction right. > > The difficulty lies in working out which physical drives the BIOS > numbers correspond to. Unless you have a *very* new system, there is > simply no way to know that the BIOS drive 0x81 is in fact wd2. In > order for this to work, the user has to provide the missing data, > either by typing 1:wd(2a)kernel every time (tedious) or putting it in > /boot.config. Any reason we can't pick this up from d_typename? 00000200 57 45 56 82 05 00 00 00 77 64 30 73 32 00 00 00 |WEV.....wd0s2...| This is on my list of things to test in the new boot2. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message