From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue May 26 09:38:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA00265 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 26 May 1998 09:38:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from sendero.simon-shapiro.org (sendero.simon-shapiro.org.142.69.207.in-addr.arpa [207.69.142.25] (may be forged)) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id JAA00241 for ; Tue, 26 May 1998 09:38:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from shimon@sendero.simon-shapiro.org) Received: (qmail 18358 invoked by uid 1000); 26 May 1998 17:40:18 -0000 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.3 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <19980524024533.60246@follo.net> Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 13:40:18 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: shimon@simon-shapiro.org Organization: The Simon Shapiro Foundation From: Simon Shapiro To: Eivind Eklund Subject: Re: Weird behaviour in BootEasy Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 24-May-98 Eivind Eklund wrote: > On Sat, May 23, 1998 at 09:06:36AM -0700, Mike Smith wrote: >> > I just switched my system to use a different bootdrive (a DPT RAID >> > array, actually) than I had before, and got the following behaviour: >> > >> > On a standard boot, BootEasy won't go to BSD, displaying 'F?' when I >> > select the BSD partiton. >> >> This typically means that the disk geometry is messed up, ie. the >> geometry used when constructing the disk layout is different to the >> geometry that the BIOS is using when BootEasy attempts to load the MBR. > > I know. However, it doesn't look like that's happening (though I > haven't really debugged this yet, so it might well be it.) > >> > However, if I select F5 for booting to >> > another drive (even though I don't have another bootable drive), then >> > reboot, and _then_ press F2 when booteasy appears, it boots and works >> > fine. >> >> Sounds like the DPT is playing games changing its reported geometry >> based on what's on the drive. The fact that F5 appears indicates that >> it's reporting more than one BIOS disk, which suggests that there's >> some ugly stuff going on. > > F5 doesn't appear. Originally, I had another bootable disk as the > first disk on an Adaptec in the machine. F5 didn't appear, but when I > pressed it I got the other bootblock. This no longer happen - I get > 'F?' when I press F5. Then I reboot, and F1/F2 appears again, with F5 > as default. If I press F5 here, it boot correctly. > >> > 4. Continue until I reach booteasy >> > 5. Press F2 >> > 6. Boot normally from the FreeBSD bootblocks. >> > >> > If I reboot after this, I again get the F? when it tries to >> > auto-select the BSD partition (or if I press F2 without having pressed >> > F5 first). >> >> The FreeBSD driver probably nukes some state in the DPT that tells it >> that it's changed its mind about the geometry. > > That's possible; I don't know the details of how the DPT handles this. Did you make sure you started dptmgr with the /fw0 option? If not, you built an array that is only recognizable by the driver, not the controller. Since the FreeBSD driver does not recognize/support in-kernel RAID-0, you are actually looking at the old array. In this case we may have a problem; When the DPT builds an array, it steals the first sector on every disk for its own use, and offsets all the LBA's by one. What it does with in-kernel RAID-0 I know not. >> > Any clues? Or should I just re-install BootEasy and see if it goes >> > away? (It seems like such an interesting little problem... :-) >> >> Reinstalling BootEasy won't change anything - it contains no geometry >> state at all. The situation basically results from you having moved >> the disk from one controller with one BIOS translation to another. The >> fact that the DPT learns the disk geometry and lets you boot at all is >> an added bonus; normally you wouldn't be able to do that. > > I have _NOT_ moved the disk from one controller to another. I have > re-built the partitions on the same drive, not changing the geometry > at all. Everywhere that report geometry report the same. See my question above about dptmgr/fw0... > I was thinking it might be an old version of BootEasy, and that a new > version might handle this differently. I don't think it is more than > 6 months old (and I can't remember any changes in BootEasy in that > time), but I didn't originally install the disk, so I don't really > know. I did :-) It came streight off the boot floppy. It was 3.0-current of early April. Simon --- Sincerely Yours, Simon Shapiro Shimon@Simon-Shapiro.ORG 770.265.7340 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message