Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 02:23:22 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com> To: InsaneX556@aol.com Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Problem with installing from MS-DOS partition/floppy. Message-ID: <199608010023.CAA00825@eac.iafrica.com> In-Reply-To: <960731135413_374209785@emout07.mail.aol.com> from "InsaneX556@aol.com" at Jul 31, 96 01:54:14 pm
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InsaneX556@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 96-07-30 20:09:02 EDT, rnordier@iafrica.com (Robert > Nordier) writes: > > << InsaneX556@aol.com wrote: > > > This is a pretty bad problem. I rawcopied the boot.flp file to the boot > disk > > and it works perfectly. I am trying to install from an MS-DOS (Win95) > > partition. I copied all of the bin files into the c:\freebsd\bin directory > > and tried installing. The program installs all the partitions and > everything > > is fine, until it gets to the copy/slash stage. Once the install program > > reaches about 120K of the first file it quits with an error message that > > there's an error writing the files. This problem is especially weird, > because > > it actually READS from the partition, so it can't be a problem with > > recognizing the partition. I am trying to install from a Western Digital > 2.5G > > EIDE hard drive onto a partition that is on the last 500M of the hard > drive. > > I tried a floppy installation, but it doesn't even recognize the files on > the > > floppy as the bin distribution files. Someone please help, I need to > install > > the system FAST! Thanks for your help. > > Would you happen to know your drive geometry, and the cluster size > of your DOS partition? (The cluster size is the "allocation unit" > size reported by 'chkdsk'.) > > Some problems have been reported when using FreeBSD to access DOS > partitions (particularly with large cluster sizes) on 64 head, 63 > sector IDE drives. > > -- > Robert Nordier > >> > > Ok, I have 4960 Cylinders, 16 Heads, 63 Sectors, and cluster size is 32,768 > bytes. That is only because I had to chop off a 500M partition, or else it > would be 64K! But I was installing it on my 500M partition, which has like 8K > cluster sizes. Thanks for your help. Your parameters don't quite match the profile, so you may not have the problem I had in mind. However, the present FreeBSD DOS code (which we're working on replacing) does tend to be a bit shaky accessing large DOS partitions (even 500M). You did say the error was on _writing_ (not reading) the files? If an error occurred while writing to the disk, the problem may well be at another level, and your drive simply isn't being recognized/handled correctly. It could be worth retrying a floppy installation, to see if any files then get written to the hard drive without errors. Which version of FreeBSD are you installing (2.1 or 2.1.5)? I haven't done a floppy install in a while, and the files needed on the floppies differ from one version to the other. Do you have the files in directories off the root (eg. a:\bin\bin.aa) and - if 2.1.5 - do you have 'bin.inf' on the first diskette? -- Robert Nordier
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