From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Jan 12 15:34:29 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D9F337B401 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:34:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk [81.2.69.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33E6143EB2 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:34:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h0CNYB1n003458 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:34:11 GMT (envelope-from matthew@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: (from matthew@localhost) by happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id h0CNY6rV003457 for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:34:06 GMT Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:34:06 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbie needs help with installation tasks. Message-ID: <20030112233406.GA2155@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi> Mail-Followup-To: Matthew Seaman , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.0 required=5.0 tests=IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES,SPAM_PHRASE_00_01, USER_AGENT,USER_AGENT_MUTT version=2.43 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, Jan 12, 2003 at 11:19:35PM +0000, Steve Gladstone wrote: > I formatted two floppy disks and used the /tools/fdimage utility on the > CD-R disk to copy /floppies/kern.flp and /floppies/mfsroot.flp to the > floppy disks. > > I rebooted again with the new partition marked as active after selecting > the floppy drive as the first boot device in the BIOS settings. > > I got the FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader message as expected but instead of > being prompted to insert the mfsroot disk I got the following messages... > > /kernel text=0x2833b1 zf_read: unexpected EOF > zf_read: unexpected EOF > > elf_loadexec: archsw.readin failed. > can't load module '/kernel'; input/output error. This looks to me like a problem with one of the floppy disks you made. Try again with a fresh floppy. From experience, I've found that there's quite a high failure rate on floppy disks used in this way --- a single bad sector on the disk will make it useless for booting a kernel from. If you've got a FreeBSD machine available, running fdformat(1) on the floppy and making sure that it formats without error will generally confirm that the floppy is usable. Plus reformatting the disk seems to improve you chances of success when you copy one of the download disk images onto it. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message