From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jun 8 13:46:35 1995 Return-Path: questions-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id NAA27382 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jun 1995 13:46:35 -0700 Received: from maelstrom.cc.mcgill.ca (maelstrom.CC.McGill.CA [132.206.35.2]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id NAA27375 for ; Thu, 8 Jun 1995 13:46:32 -0700 Received: (from yves@localhost) by maelstrom.cc.mcgill.ca (8.6.10/8.6.6) id QAA07759 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 8 Jun 1995 16:38:57 -0400 Message-Id: <199506082038.QAA07759@maelstrom.cc.mcgill.ca> Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2) From: Yves Lepage Date: Thu, 8 Jun 95 16:38:55 -0400 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Boot Manager problem Reply-To: yves@CC.McGill.CA Sender: questions-owner@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk Hello, I am a new freebsd user and I have encountered a real weird problem. I created a bootable floppy (boot_144.flp), booted it and used sysinstall to create proper slices, partitions, etc.... wrote MBR and boot code and label. At this point I was asked to remove the floppy and boot from the HD (IDE 1.25GB on a P75 Packard Bell system, PCI bus.) Boot manager would not boot my newly installed kernel from the HD. I was able to fool it: I booted the floppy again and I told the FreeBSD boot monitor to go and boot hd(0,a)/kernel. It worked fine and I was able to continue the installation. Now, since this will be a production machine, I need to be able to have an automated boot sequence. My prefered choice would be to get rid of the broken boot manager ( I run the same version at home on a 486dx2/50, 1GB IDE disk, ISA bus, ATI ultra pro, and the boot manager works fine). I did notice a certain difference between what the BIOS thinks my HD is (geometry) and what FreeBSD thinks it is. For my BIOS, the HD is 2477 cyl, 16 heads and 63 secs for a total of 1278MB. For FreeBSD it is the same thing except that it thinks it is 1219MB. (the right number is 1278=16*63*2477*512) I wonder if that's what is breaking the boot manager..... So my questions are: 1- is there a way to fix it? 2- if not, if there a way to directly enter FreeBSD's boot monitor without going through the boot manager? (if yes, how?) Thank you very much, so far, FreeBSD gained a new fan. Yves Lepage yves@cc.mcgill.ca