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Date:      Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:48:03 -0500 (EST)
From:      Paul Southworth <pauls@etext.org>
To:        "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Ken Key <key@network-alchemy.com>, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Continuing ThinkPad saga 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0012071031120.24248-100000@locust.etext.org>
In-Reply-To: <200012042345.eB4NjUi71152@bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com>

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On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, Bruce A. Mah wrote:

:> > So I'm real curious to see why two different machines with the same 
:> > firmware behave differently.  Is there any chance of finding out what 
:> > the partition table for your T20 with BIOS 1.03 is?
:> 
:> I've got a request for the fdisk output, but I believe it is simply:
:> 
:> ad0s1 FAT32/Win98
:> ad0s2 FreeBSD
:
:Hmmm...OK, thanks.  Hmmm.

I have a T20 which had BIOS 1.03 and now has BIOS 1.08, which doesn't work
with FreeBSD.  Behavior does not change between the two BIOS revs.  My T20
is a 2647-84U.

I tried with FreeBSD 4.1.1-RELEASE and 4.2-RELEASE.

What I found is that no matter what boot block is on the system, if there
is a FreeBSD part (165) anywhere on the disk, the machine locks up at the
end of POST. 

What I tried were:

FreeBSD on slice 1 with FreeBSD boot block
FreeBSD on slice 1 with Win98 MBR (ie, no way to boot FreeBSD)
Win98/FAT32 on slice 1 and FreeBSD on slice 2, FreeBSD's MBR
Win98/FAT32 on slice 1 and FreeBSD on slice 2, Win98 MBR

Essentially I just tried each option and then booted a floppy and did an
"FDISK /MBR" to clobber the FreeBSD boot manager.  All of those fail.

I used a Thinkpad 600E to alter the disk each time, since the T20 can't be
booted from CD or floppy if there is a FreeBSD part on the disk.

I concluded that this has nothing to do with FreeBSD's boot block and is
more likely related to the partition type.  Altering the FreeBSD booter to
support alternate partition types appears to be the simplest workaround,
though perhaps morally repugnant.

Cheers,

--Paul



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