From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Sep 12 21: 6:44 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ipal.net (n0.ipal.net [206.97.151.200]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C936F14E98 for ; Sun, 12 Sep 1999 21:06:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from phil@ipal.net) Received: (from phil@localhost) by ipal.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA23389 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 12 Sep 1999 23:06:36 -0500 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 23:06:36 -0500 From: phil@ipal.net Message-Id: <199909130406.XAA23389@ipal.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: installing 3.1 from CD Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Back in March I purchased the Walnut Creek 4 CD set version 3.1. A few weeks later I proceeded to actually try to install it. The kernel came up and let me do some configuration. Eventually I got to the actual install part. An install program started up. However it soon gave an error message claiming that it could not find my CD, or maybe that it could find no CDs. That made no sense since the CD drive is there and is working fine. I know that because the kernel booted from the CD and was able to read the install program from it. I initially asked for some help on IRC (maybe this was the big mistake). Over the course of a couple weeks of asking, 3 people offered to help. After describing the problem, all 3 said my hardware was broken. But that can't be the case since Linux (Redhat and Slackware) and Windows (98 and NT) as well as the FreeBSD kernel, have no problem reading the drive. When that was explained, one of them finally said it might be because I had the CDROM attached as IDE secondary master. I've ruled out specific problems with specific motherboards now, as I've tried doing the install on 4 different ones (ASUS MEL-M, ASUS P2B-VM, Intel SR440BX, and TYAN Tomcat-III), using CD drives by 3 different manufacturers (Kenwood, Mitsumi, and Sony), all IDE. All the harddrives are IDE, and in removeable trays that prevent attaching the CDROM as primary slave. If FreeBSD can't handle this situation, I just want someone know really knows to tell me that so I can stop wasting time with it. Since it seems that the kernel did read from the drive OK, I would think this is not a problem. And since quite many PCs are built similarly (CDROM attached as secondary master instead of primary slave) it would surely not be something support would be lacking for. But maybe it is the install program that is goofed up? That would be more believeable. But does someone really know if it is or not? If there is all indication that everything should work with this hardware configuration, then what steps could I do during the installation to determine what it things would be the problem? Are there any hidden, secret, or just plain non-obvious places to look or commands to run, or whatever, that would diagnose it? I haven't tried the CD for a few months. But if someone knows things I might do to get it to work, or to get more diagnostics, I'll give it another go. I don't know if this address is a mailing list or what, but I am not on it, so I won't get any answers unless mailed directly to me (and I'm not interested in subscribing to any more mailing lists). So if you could reply directly back, that would be most appreciated. Thank you. -- Phil Howard phil@ipal.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message