Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:41:09 +0930 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: filo@yahoo-inc.com Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: biosboot/start.S needs fix for Intel AL440LX motherboard Message-ID: <199710170011.JAA02473@word.smith.net.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Oct 1997 03:48:28 MST." <199710161048.DAA27096@ns2.yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> The latest BIOS from Intel for their AL440LX board does not pass the > drive number in %dl as biosboot/start.S assumes (instead %dl is set to > 0). The end result is that you cannot boot from a harddrive if you're > not using slices (a "Read error" occurs after the BIOS hands over > control). Booting from floppy works fine and using slices with bteasy > works as well. Unpleasant. How are you supposed to differentiate between booting from a harddisk (0x8?) and a floppy (0x0?) ? > Forcing %dl to $0x80 (which is what bteasy appears to do) solves the > problem for me. I assume the real solution is a bit more complex than > this. I suppose this could be due to some weird BIOS setting, but I > think I pretty much tried everything. This board will be popular, so > would be nice to get this fixed. Unless Intel are angling for compatability with some other standard, I think the correct fix will be a BIOS upgrade. If they are, it'd be handy to know which one, so that we can detect and support it. Forcing %dl to 0x80 obviously breaks using the same start.s for both harddisk and floppy booting. mike
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199710170011.JAA02473>