Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 18:16:18 +0100 From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Booting from large IDE drive, not first partition Message-ID: <19990809181618.A11386@linnet.org>
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Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I've searched the archives and can't find
anything recent regarding large IDE hard drives.
I have installed 3.2-19990809-STABLE on a workstation with a 13GB hard
drive, which is sliced like this:
s1 2GB Windows95 FAT16
s2 6GB Extended (2GB FAT16, rest in reserve)
s3 5GB FreeBSD
Unfortunately, I am unable to make it boot. The FreeBSD bootloader is in the
MBR[1], and at boot time it asks me
F1 DOS
F3 FreeBSD
However, when I press F3, all I get is a beep. F1 boots Windows fine.
I have managed to boot with the kern/mfsroot/fixit floppies, mount all the
partitions, "chroot /mnt /usr/local/bin/bash" then "disklabel -B wd0" which
is accepted, but it still won't boot after that. Any more than that is
beyond me, I'm afraid.
The machine is a Gateway box (GP7-450 is what the label says) and the BIOS
setup says that the disk is in LBA mode.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated as to how I can either:
(1) fix the bootloader; or
(2) boot a kernel from floppy disk and have it continue to load with wd0a as
its root filesystem (not ideal but it would be acceptable)
(OK, I admit it, I am a Linux user. However I am trying to avoid installing
LILO or just giving up :-)
Please cc me on any reply as I'm not on the list.
Many thanks,
Brian Candler.
[1] Amusingly, Norton Antivirus thinks that the FreeBSD bootloader is the
Bloodhound virus. I tell it not to attempt to fix it, of course.
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