From owner-freebsd-current Sat Nov 15 18:42:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA11846 for current-outgoing; Sat, 15 Nov 1997 18:42:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current) Received: from nomis.i-connect.net (nomis.i-Connect.Net [206.190.143.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id SAA11841 for ; Sat, 15 Nov 1997 18:42:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from shimon@i-connect.net) Received: (qmail 17512 invoked by uid 1000); 16 Nov 1997 02:42:50 -0000 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.2-beta-111097 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 18:42:50 -0800 (PST) Organization: Atlas Telecom From: Simon Shapiro To: Simon Shapiro Subject: RE: Boot Floppy Problem Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi Simon Shapiro; On 15-Nov-97 you wrote: > Hi Y'all, > > At least since 13-Nov, but after 31-Oct, the boot floppy will install > everything OK (?) but the system will not boot afterwards; > > BootMGR displays all the partitions, etc., but pressing F2 for FreeBSD > (for > example), yields a ``?'' and another list of Fx buttons to push. > > If you have DOS on the system, it will be invoked fine from the bootmgr. > > No reasonable set of arguments to the boot FLOPPY kernel loader ends up > in > a booted system (from hard disk - booting from floppy obviously works). > > Any suggestion will be appreciated. > > This is on an IDE HD, IDE CD, P6-200, etc. machine which runs FreeBSD > fine > otherwise. I managed to solve the problem. Beat me if I know how :-( Essentially, what I did was to install some disk-ez ez-disk or whateveer the call it that comes with the IDE drive, then uninstall it, then ``format drive C:'' then install Doze, then install Unix again and now it works. We had similar (but a bit different) problem at work where an HP Vectra AX will not write the MBR at all, without error nor complaint! The only thing that worked was a ``low level format''. Seems like newer IDE drives are married to M$ product in some unholy matermony. I do not know enough of the internal details of this disgusting mess to comment further or offer a solution. Simon