Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 23:54:50 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: ir@hotbox.ru Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CD-ROM troubles on i815EP based MB Message-ID: <3DAD0D3A.A97D19EB@mindspring.com> References: <20021016055517.GA462@sysadm.stc>
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This should possibly have been posted to -questions... at least half of it has nothing to do with -current. Igor Roboul wrote: > I have trouble installing -CURRENT (and booting live snapshot) on > MSI MS-6337LE motherboard (which uses i815EP chipset). > Kernel just can not find CD :-( This PC has Sony 52x CD-ROM The CDROM boot mechanism operates by using the BIOS; it's totally unrelated to whether or not the hardware is supported or not by FreeBSD. Specifically, the way it works is that the BIOS for the CDROM hardware patches the POST BIOS routines in the system (if it is a seperate CDROM controller), or the system BIOS directly supports booting from CDROM. The BIOS fakes up a floppy disk drive, using the floppy image from the CDROM, which the BIOS locates by searching for a particular file on the CDROM, that references a floppy disk image on the CDROM. If you can not boot FreeBSD from a CDROM at all -- if booting from the CDROM is not an option -- then it is a problem with the BIOS of your system, and not a problem with FreeBSD. Most likely, you need to go into the BIOS setup screen, and change the device boot order, to ensure the CDROM is attempted to boot before the hard drive is attempted. If you have a seperate disk controller card which you have installed for the CDROM to use, you will need to go into the setup for that card, instead of the system BIOS setup. Alternately, you need to upgrade the system BIOS, or the BIOS in the controller to which the CDROM is attached. > I can boot with same live CD on older VIA-chipset based PC. It's the BIOS, not the FreeBSD. > Also, I have trouble installing anything newer than 4.5-RELEASE on > this system. Kernel finds CD device, but goes big loop of > "MODE_SENSE_BIG command timeout - reseting" > Then it boots but without CD. First, record the dmesg for the kernel that works: cd /root dmesg > dmesg_45_OK This *is* a driver problem. As a workaround, you should install the FreeBSD 4.5-RELEASE version on the machine, and then mount the floppy image on the CDROM on a vnode device (man vnconfig) to get the image off. Then, from within the floppy image itself, you will need to copy off the "sysinstall" program to /tmp, so that you have a copy of "sysinstall" that matches the version on the CDROM (the sysinstall program is not available on the CDROM directly because [insert no good reason here]). After you have copied the sysinstall to /tmp, unmount all the vnode devices (you will have used two to get at the sysinstall image), and: cd /tmp ./sysinstall This will run the version off the CDROM. Select "upgrade", and use the "from CDROM" or "from local file system" option, and upgrade. Exit the sysinstall. Now *before you reboot*, run the commands that are not run off a vanilla sysinstall, but are run off a boot sysinstall (again [insert no good reason here]). Specifically: cd /dev sh MAKEDEV all sync When you reboot, the new kernel may or may not recognize your CDROM drive; if not, then you will need to provide a problem report; most likely, though, it's just related to the drivers on the old kernel vs. the new kernel (e.g. some people have removed some historically supported drivers from 4.7 for [insert bogus licensing reason that never mattered before now here]). If your drive is one of these, it's possible to make it work with the 4.7 kernel (this was discussed on -hacker and -current recently). If that's the case, you should find the CDROM announcement line in the dmesg for the 4.5 kernel that you recorded at the start of the upgrade process, and post again to this list, and someone will be able to help you. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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