Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 22:33:58 -0400 From: Barry Kirchgessner <barrykk@home.com> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Newbie can't get past "boot:" prompt on new machine Message-ID: <3B0F1616.908059A9@home.com>
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If anyone could help here, I would appreciate it. I purchased the shrink-wrapped FreeBSD 4.0 book/CDs a few months back, and am now trying to install it. I will give such info on my problem as I believe might be relevant, but I can't type everything here, so let me know what more might be needed. After being told by the Installation program that everything is a success, I exit, remove the CD, and the system goes to a point where I get a "No /boot/loader" message and a "boot:" prompt. Nothing I type there works, most things return a "No " in front of what I typed echoed back. The default offered by the system is: "0:ad(0,a)/kernel", and typing that again returns "No /kernel". I typed everything that looked potentially useful in the "boot" man page. I have tried to reinstall several times. Once I got "Missing Operating System", and discovered that FreeBSD was ignoring the info in the MB BIOS. So I straightened out the Geometry (it really should tell you what it's doing there, instead of relying on you to hit "G" and check for yourself), but I get a system again that goes to the "boot:" prompt and no further. The hardware configuration starts with 8 conflicts. My NIC and SCSI card are not there by name, so I remove all listed cards from the top of the screen. (Nothing's connected to the SCSI now; in a few days there will be HD inside and a tape drive and scanner externally connected.) Hardware: The motherboard is the Tyan S1598 Trinity 100; carries an AMD K6-2 500 chip The SCSI card is a Kouwell 9100U with an Initio INIC-940P chip (again, presently not connected to anything) The NIC is a D-Link DFE-530TX+ (its chip is labeled DL10038 though elsewhere it is described as being the Realtec RTL8139B [http://www.scyld.com/network/ethercard.html]) An Intel i740 AGP video board No sound board IBM UltraStar 4.56GB SCSI hard drive, model 9ES DDRS-34560 (not yet attached) IBM DeskStar 46.11GB EIDE UltraATA/100 hard drive, model 75GXP DTLA-307045 IBM DeskStar 34.21GB EIDE UltraATA/66 hard drive, model 34GXP DPTA-373420 ACER 16X x 40X ATAPI DVD driver ACER 10X x 4X x 32X ATAPI CD-rewriter drive Mitsumi 1.44 floppy I'm waiting on an adapter to run the 68-pin SCSI drive on a 50 pin cable, and I'm impatient to get the box working, even if it means installing from scratch again in a week. In the hardware configuration screen I had 8 conflicts. After removing all SCSI and NIC entries from the top of the screen, I had none left. I also removed the "PC-card controller" from the Miscellaneous category. I have installed several times. I tried "dangerously dedicated" first: this machine is to be an always-on file and print (and scan and backup) server, and I do not want more than one OS on it. But I have also tried with the standard MBR and a free slice where a boot manager could go. I set 2 partitions on drive 0, "/"(120MB) and "/usr" (all the rest). on drive 1 is a swap partition and a file system I'm calling "/CDs", for now. I selected ALL packages for installation at the first screen that asks about what to install (/bin & so on). I have selected from the later, optional packages (offered after X11 configuration) some times, but as this ain't working I've skipped that part in later tries. At first I tried to fathom the "leaf-node" and NFS questions, but on later tries, I've just selected "No" for most of these. (I'm just learning what "recompile the kernel" and "file system" mean, so it's a bit disconcerting to be asked questions at this stage of installation phrased in a highly technical fashion, and without the promised "F1" help.) Anyway, I'm new to Unix (I have, however, installed Linux on a laptop with success), though I have some DOS, Windows, and OS/2 experience. So I'm not sure if this boot prompt is to be got past by typing something at it (I doubt it, the texts lead me to believe I should be getting to a login prompt automatically, the bootstrapper appears to be not finding something it needs -- program called "loader"?), or if I should hit the 'ol "any" key while booting from the CD, get to the command line and do something -- but what? The BIOS is set to boot from CD-ROM, C, A. The IDE drives are all attached to the motherboard, hard drives on primary, CD-ROMs on secondary. A Promise ATA100 PCI board might be added later, but the hardware that's not working is enough for now. :) Any ideas? Thanks in advance; sorry for the long post, but I hope to avoid an extra round of diagnostic questions if I can. --Barry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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