Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 16:52:32 -0700 From: mishler@hughes.net (Barry Mishler ) To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Unable to boot from floppy Message-ID: <19960731235229.AAA5584@mishler.hughes.net>
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Hello, Let me give you a quick history of what I've gone through so far: I mailed questions@freebsd.org a couple of weeks ago concerning a problem I have getting the FreeBSD boot disk to work at all on my computer. When I boot it, I get the normal four or five lines of header and usage information followed by the "boot:" prompt. But then about three seconds later, it goes into a loop where it keeps printing ERROR: C:0 H:0 S:0 infinitely. I've got a Dell P100 with nothing special except an additional 1.6GB Western Digital added to the primary EIDE controller. I got a response that my disk could be imperfect or it could be that I'm writing the boot disk on a Win95 computer which will screw it up unless I actually boot from a DOS floppy first. OK, I tried that but then I discovered that even when I wrote the disk using the dd command on an SGI, I still got the same results. I wrote several floppies using several different OSes; always the same result. Also, when I try these same boot disks on another PC, they work just fine. Then I posted to news:comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc and I got a reply from Joerg Wunsch saying: > Basically means your bootstrap cannot read the floppy at all. > > Are you sure the machine's setup (in particular floppy drive setup) is > okay? I'm not really sure how to check this but here's what I did find: When I create a Linux boot floppy I have no problems. When I create a NetBSD boot floppy I have no problems. There's obviously something peculiar about the FreeBSD boot that is causing my computer to choke. What could it be? I went through my bios and I can't find anything that could affect me. What do I do next? I'm really very serious about installing FreeBSD on my PC and I'm not willing to give up yet. I don't even know whether the "ERROR: .." message is being created by my PC or the FreeBSD boot -- and I certainly don't know how to find out. If I could get FreeBSD installed on my PC, I would be more than willing to return the favor in whatever way I'm capable. Even if that means some verification and validation of software mods. Well, I hope to hear back from you soon. Like I said, I'm very willing to put some serious work into this. If only I knew where to start. Thank you for your time, Barry Mishler mishler@mailhub.elan.af.mil
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