From owner-freebsd-questions  Tue Oct  1 07:06:17 1996
Return-Path: owner-questions
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA18768
          for questions-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 07:06:17 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from cliff.bms.com (cliff.bms.com [140.176.1.102])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA18761
          for <questions@freebsd.org>; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 07:06:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from ccgate1.bms.com by cliff.bms.com (PMDF V5.0-7 #15142)
 id <01IA4I45YEIO00TMYQ@cliff.bms.com>; Tue, 01 Oct 1996 10:05:16 -0500 (EST)
Received: from ccMail by ccgate1.bms.com (SMTPLINK V2.11 PreRelease 4)
 id AA844189776; Tue, 01 Oct 1996 09:40:01 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 09:40:01 -0500 (EST)
From: "Jeffrey M. Metcalf" <jeffrey_m._metcalf@ccmail.bms.com>
Subject: Problems booting with FreeBSD-2.1.5
To: questions@freebsd.org
Cc: metcalf@imagine.com
Message-id: <9609018441.AA844189776@ccgate1.bms.com>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

     Hello,
     
     I recently upgraded my FreeBSD-2.1.0 system to 2.1.5 and I am
     experiencing problems booting.  It seems that when I select
     OSBS to boot under FreeBSD, I get the following
     
     [43:][fd(43,a)][/kernel] ....
     
     as the default boot device.  There is, of course, no fd(43)
     device.  This occurs both when a floppy is present in fd(0)
     _and_ when there is no floppy in fd(0).  Accepting the default 
     causes a spontaneous reboot.  My current workaround is that 
     at the boot prompt I must physically type either
     
     fd(0,a)/kernel (if I want to boot from a floppy present in fd(0))
     
     or
     
     wd(0,a)/kernel (if I want to boot from my hard drive).
     
     
     This is a very strange error and it first occurred when I put
     a new 2MB Maxtor hard drive in my system at wd(0), and moved
     my old 1.6MB Maxtor to wd(1).  I reinstalled FreeBSD-2.1.5
     onto the 2MB Maxtor using the boot floppy (typing fd(0,a)/kernel
     at the boot prompt) and extracting the bin, etc. distributions
     that I put in the existing filesystem on my old Maxtor hard drive.
     My Windows95 system seems to have no problem with this setup.
     
     Any ideas about what could cause this?  Could it be strange 
     properties of my BIOS or the way I have my hard drives jumpered?
     I followed the proper master/slave jumper settings for the 
     Maxtors.
     
     Thank You,
     
     JM