From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 22 16:05:57 2004 Return-Path: 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 32F9616A4CE for ; Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:05:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from hotmail.com (sea1-dav31.sea1.hotmail.com [207.68.162.88]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 119CB43D53 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:05:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from c0d3h4x0r@hotmail.com) Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:05:53 -0800 Received: from 131.107.3.86 by sea1-dav31.sea1.hotmail.com with DAV; Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:05:53 +0000 X-Originating-IP: [131.107.3.86] X-Originating-Email: [c0d3h4x0r@hotmail.com] X-Sender: c0d3h4x0r@hotmail.com From: "Keith Kelly" To: "Charles Swiger" References: <200401222044.i0MKi5a27869@clunix.cl.msu.edu> <2BB15265-4D2E-11D8-95B0-003065A20588@mac.com> <8D4517BF-4D32-11D8-95B0-003065A20588@mac.com> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:05:54 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: MSN 9 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Seal-Send-Time: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:05:54 -0800 X-MimeOLE: Produced By MSN MimeOLE V9.00.0011.1200 Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Jan 2004 00:05:53.0743 (UTC) FILETIME=[AAE165F0:01C3E144] cc: freebsd-questions ORG Subject: Re: FDisk won't detect or accept correct disk geometry from BIOS X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:05:57 -0000 Inline. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Swiger" To: "Keith Kelly" Cc: "freebsd-questions ORG" Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 3:27 PM Subject: Re: FDisk won't detect or accept correct disk geometry from BIOS > On Jan 22, 2004, at 6:04 PM, Keith Kelly wrote: > > The motherboard is not old. It is an MSI KT4 Ultra motherboard, if I > > remember the model number correctly off the top of my head, for the > > Athlon > > XP architecture. The BIOS doesn't even explicitly list what mode > > (LBA, CHS, > > extended CHS) it is using to address the drive -- I just set it to > > "Auto", > > it detects the device name, and fills out a small listing telling me > > the > > C/H/S geometry it is using. The motherboard is already running the > > latest > > available BIOS update from MSI. > > OK, but if the auto mode uses the wrong C/H/S translation, this default > may be the source of your problem. What happens when you switch from > using "auto" to explicitly using "LBA"? I don't know. I've never had to change away from "Auto" to get any other OS to install or boot from any of my hard drives, though, so I really doubt that is the problem. I'm quite confident the problem must lie with FreeBSD itself, in the form of a bug or a lack of hardware support. Although my integrated IDE controller and all other basic hardware is on the FreeBSD supported hardware list. > > [ ... ] > > I definitely do not have hardware issues, because Linux, Windows XP, > > Windows > > 2000, BeOS, and SkyOS have all worked fine at various points, and > > Windows XP > > continues to work fine :-) > > Your error message reflects a BIOS-level failure to find a bootable > partition. > > Do you already have a bootable partition on the system, and are trying > to install FreeBSD in a second partition? If so, which partition is > marked active? No. The hard drive is the only hard drive attached (I detached my two other drives with WinXP and data files on them, so they couldn't get inadvertently hosed during installation... those two devices were on the primary IDE chain. I moved the blank hard drive and the CD-ROM drive, which were on the secondary IDE chain, onto the primary IDE chain to try to get FreeBSD installed that way. There's currently nothing on the secondary IDE chain). And, I did ensure in all my attempts that I marked the single full-disk slice I created with fdisk as bootable. > > -- > -Chuck > >