Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 22:57:50 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu> To: Jesse T Kipp <Zaphod@imailbox.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: MBR problem installing 2.2.2 Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971026225445.12269G-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu> In-Reply-To: <19971026220912.1af16e66.in@mail.imailbox.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, 26 Oct 1997 Zaphod.Beeblebrox@imailbox.com wrote: > I'm not sure where this belongs, but for now I'll assume it will end > up in the right place eventually. You got the right spot. > So, I used FIPS to create a partition on my 540 meg IDE drive (I had > a nasty windows virus the week earlier that took out half my drive, > so, I decided to put all that empty space to good use) and the first > time I installed FreeBSD (from the MS-DOS partition to the other > partition) it basically chewed up and spat out my MBR... :( (for some > unknown reason...). (un?)Fortunetly, I had made a copy of my boot > sector using FIPS and was able to recover the DOS/WINDOWS partition > my mom and sister use. And, I've said all this to make two > suggestions for future installation programs..... Unless you have a program loaded on your MBR to allow you to use all of your disk (usually called OnTrack), don't worry about it. THe MBR is a bit of code run to point the system at the correct partition to boot. If you don't have anything special there and need to rebuild it, just run fdisk /mbr from any DOS prompt. This reinstalls the DOS default MBR which is good enough for anything. Now, if you mess up the partition table (which is quite likely based on the damage you're relating to me here) then that could cause problems. Running ScanDisk or Norton Disk Doctor should fix up any possible problems. > 1) I would have been much happier about the whole installation if I > knew what it was going to be like (i.e. when I was going to choose my > installation method, my drive partitions, when the changes would be > written and stuff like that...) before it happened, I was pretty > nervous dealing with my MBR or boot sector not knowing exactly > what is going to happen. There is online help available everywhere -- just hit F1. > 2) Twice I had to reboot my machine because I forgot to download one > of the abundent binary files, and BSD wouldn't either stop where is > was and let me continue later, or give me an option to cancel the > installation when a file was missing (It had a dialog box that just > said [O.K.] and nothing else). You needed all the files, bin.aa - bin.c? and bin.inf. > Sorry that the letter ended up being very long-winded, if you have > any questions (about my hardware, who I am, whatever....) Feel free > to e-mail me personally. :) No problem. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.96.971026225445.12269G-100000>