Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:12:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu> To: Bryan Batten <BryanBatten@compuserve.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.2.2 Won't Boot Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970915220919.3096O-100000@localhost> In-Reply-To: <199709152132_MC2-208B-FA39@compuserve.com>
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On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Bryan Batten wrote: > More on whether or not System Commander can overcome the 500MB limitation: > I should have RTFM. Page 9 of the manual states flatly that "System > Commander supports drives up to 8.1 GB in size, ...". In fact, I boot Linux > from exactly the same location on my second EIDE drive with no problems. OKay, check that. > What I eventually did was to de- install System Commander, then install > FreeBSD yet again, this time using the "Install MBR" option ... and it > worked! I could boot FreeBSD. However, when I re- installed System > Commander and tried to boot my newly installed FreeBSD using that, I was > once again back to the "No bootable partition" message. Hm, I'm quite sure that the `no bootable partition' message is a complaint from SysCommander. So there must be something in the FreeBSD bootblocks that offends it. > One option would be just to use "Booteasy"; but the problem there is that > two of these OSes boot from my second drive, and Booteasy only shows me > options for my first drive. Odd, it doesn't give you the `F5 disk 2' option? > I guess what's really confusing me now is why boot code for a particular > partition should care what's in the MBR? Whatever is in the MBR obviously > has run, located the partition boot sector, loaded that, and transferred > control to it. Could it be that "Booteasy" is a little too paranoid? Less > checking and validation might improve interoperability - IMHO. Maybe. Booteasy is a bit aged. SysCommander provides some more intelligence, but there may be something in it that doesn't like the FreeBSD bootblock. > At any rate, the FreeBSD boot procedure has me stumped. Is source code > available for "Booteasy"? Perhaps being able to see what is actually going > on might help me to resolve matters. Looks like I also need to browse > through V Communications info to see if they say anything about FreeBSD, > and Free BSD info to see what I can resolve, there. The source for booteasy is included in the main distribution, which is located in tools/src. It's a short assembly program if I remember correctly. > In the meantime, thanks for your interest in my problem. np. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major Spam routed to /dev/null by Procmail | Death to Cyberpromo
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