From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Oct 18 23:38:49 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from abc01.home.net (abc01.legalimm.com [209.218.30.53]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 34D8D37B479; Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:38:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from D3CQV101.annapurna.com ([216.73.136.244]) by abc01.home.net (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-65406U500L100S0V35) with ESMTP id net; Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:57:35 -0400 Message-Id: <5.0.0.25.0.20001018145632.00ac76f8@mail.fiderus.com> X-Sender: rob@mail.nova.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0 Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:59:29 -0400 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Rob Winters Subject: Re: new IBM Thinkpads rejecting FreeBSD Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG This is an old thread from the archive, but I seem to be dredging up the issue IRL, so I thought I'd pass along some additional information. Someone else wrote: > > The rep at IBM Tech Support claims that IBM is aware of this problem. He > > claimed that FreeBSD was "writing the boot sector somewhere above the usual > > boot sector location". His explanation doesn't make sense, and he was > unable > > to provide me with any specifics... Jonas Bulow wrote: >That doesn't make sense. The only thing I changed to get the drive >working was to change the partition type of the freebsd partition from >165 to 131. Today I will try to use partition magic to create the >partitions. I just killed a ThinkPad A20p by installing 4.1-RELEASE. Apparently IBM allows for boot sector programs of a certain size, i.e. "LILO-sized". After that, the BIOS stores power management information ON THE BOOT SECTOR. If the BIOS finds unpalatable information in that location (presumably whatever FreeBSD puts there), then it gets very confused: - can't boot alternate devices (floppy, CD, or even an UltraBay HD) - can't run the BIOS config - loops on the "ThinkPad" start-up screen Remove the HD, and the system boots; insert the HD and it's very dead. The only way out is to wipe the boot sector, and you can't do it on any of this generation ThinkPad (A20, T20, etc). You can on a 600, or probably some other flavors of older ThinkPad, or any other computer where they aren't stupid enough to store BIOS information on the boot sector. Not having access to a TP600, I'm waiting for a HD swap from IBM. The support guy said that this was just referred to engineering as a problem, so hopefully a future BIOS update will fix it. In the mean time, the FreeBSD loader is not an option for these 'Pads. Their current company line is a very simplistic "Linux supported -- FreeBSD not supported". If LILO gets any bigger, I think they'll have to amend that statement. It's really funny: the IBM support tech started the call smugly enough with "No, this isn't like some *Compaq* where they store BIOS software on the hard drive"... :-) Turns out, it's exactly like that. :-( /// Rob P.S. BTW, this was my second support call. The first guy said flatly "UNIX is not supported on IBM ThinkPads". He stuck to this position even after I pointed out that IBM *ships* ThinkPads with Linux on them. Hung up. Called again. Got a smart guy. Life goes on. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message