Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 14:18:00 -0500 From: "Tim M. Kelley" <tkelley@cy.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: FDISK /MBR problems resolved Message-ID: <199601252025.PAA26924@cy.com>
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Hello all,
SHORT VERSION
-------------
Problem: FDISK /MBR wouldn't work; returned with "no fixed disks installed"
Other info: FBSD-installed boot manager didn't recognize FBSD boot disk.
ATAPI CDROM drive set as slave on primary IDE for fbsd installation.
FBSD installed on separate hard drive
Solution: Place 2 DOS drives on primary IDE, FBSD drive and ATAPI CDROM
drive on secondary IDE.
Result: FDISK /MBR rewrote the dos master boot record onto dos drive C:
DETAILED VERSION
----------------
I'm writing to let people know how I resolved a problem with FDISK /MBR
after FreeBSD 2.1R installation.
In order to install FBSD 2.1 from an ATAPI CDROM drive, I had to move my CD
from it's slave position on the secondary IDE to the slave position on the
primary IDE. This was necessary because the ATAPI boot floppy for the
installation only recognizes these CDROM drives as the slave on the primary IDE.
After installing fbsd, I compiled a custom kernel to recognize the ATAPI
CDROM in this position. FreeBSD recognized my CDROM drive no problem after this.
I chose to install the boot manager during the novice installation. However,
upon boot up of the machine, the boot manager did not give me an option to
boot to the FreeBSD drive.
Taking the easy way out, I chose to try to use FDISK /MBR under dos to
restore the master boot record so that I wasn't presented with the boot
manager that came with freebsd, since it didn't work for me anyway.
Unfortunately, FDISK /MBR returned immediately with the message: "no fixed
disks present". Obviously, that wasn't the case since I booted from the dos
hard drive C: in order to try to run FDISK in the first place.
Anyway, here's what I did that allowed FDISK to recognize my disks. I moved
the ATAPI CDROM back to the slave position on the secondary IDE, moved the
second DOS hard drive (drive D:) to the slave position on the primary IDE,
and left the DOS boot hard drive (drive C:) as master on the primary IDE and
the FreeBSD hard disk as master on the secondary IDE.
Once these changes were made, FDISK recognized my dos drives and I was able
to run FDISK /MBR to restore the dos master boot record.
In order to make fbsd recognize my ATAPI CDROM, I had to compile a custom
kernel that looked for the CDROM drive attached to the secondary IDE.
What follows is my old setup where FDISK did not work, and my new setup
where FDISK does work.
OLD NEW
----
1.2 GB (DOS C:) master IDE #1 1.2 GB (DOS C:) master IDE #1
ATAPI CDROM slave IDE #1 202 MB (DOS D:) slave IDE #1
1.0 GB (FBSD) master IDE #2 1.0 GB (FBSD) master IDE #2
202 MB (DOS D:) slave IDE #2 ATAPI CDROM slave IDE #2
I hope this helps anyone else who has similar problems,
Tim Kelley
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