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From: Yves Lepage <yves@CC.McGill.CA>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 95 15:53:24 -0400
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Boot Manager problem
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Hello all,

I am a sun-managers subscribers, someone tell me if summarizing
is not required/unwlecomed here.

Here is how I solved my problem:

I booted DOS, did an "fdisk/mbr" to remove the boot code
that was on the disk.

Booted OS/2, deleted my FreeBSD slice (it was taking up the whole disk),
installed the OS/2 boot manager.

Booted the FreeBSD install disk, re-created my FreeBSD slice (original
size - 2MB that the boot manager stole) up to the point where I have
to reboot to continue the installation.

Re-Booted OS/2, added the FreeBSD partition to the OS/2 boot manager.

Rebooted the machine and t works fine since then. No more fuss about
BIOS and controller matching etc... Now the next issue to resolve
is to find out if using the OS/2 boot manager requires me to buy
an OS/2 license.

I would like to thank Julian Elischer <julian@ref.tfs.com> for
all the good will, tricks and tips he's provided me with.

My original question was:

> Hello,
>
> I am a new freebsd user and I have encountered a real weird problem.
>
> I created a bootable floppy (boot_144.flp), booted it and used sysinstall
> to create proper slices, partitions, etc.... wrote MBR and boot code and label.
>
> At this point I was asked to remove the floppy and boot from the HD (IDE
> 1.25GB on a P75 Packard Bell system, PCI bus.) Boot manager would not
> boot my newly installed kernel from the HD.
>
> I was able to fool it: I booted the floppy again and I told the FreeBSD
> boot monitor to go and boot hd(0,a)/kernel. It worked fine and I was able
> to continue the installation.
>
> Now, since this will be a production machine, I need to be able to have
> an automated boot sequence. My prefered choice would be to get rid of the
> broken boot manager ( I run the same version at home on a 486dx2/50, 1GB
> IDE disk, ISA bus, ATI ultra pro, and the boot manager works fine).
>
> I did notice a certain difference between what the BIOS thinks my HD is
> (geometry) and what FreeBSD thinks it is. For my BIOS, the HD is 2477 cyl,
> 16 heads and 63 secs for a total of 1278MB. For FreeBSD it is the same thing
> except that it thinks it is 1219MB. (the right number is 1278=16*63*2477*512)
>
> I wonder if that's what is breaking the boot manager.....
>
> So my questions are:

>1- is there a way to fix it?
>2- if not, if there a way to directly enter FreeBSD's boot monitor without
>   going through the boot manager? (if yes, how?)


Yves Lepage
yves@cc.mcgill.ca