From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 15 09:13:48 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA00553 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 15 Nov 1996 09:13:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from salty.phbtsus.com (salty.phbtsus.com [192.40.29.146]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA00537 for ; Fri, 15 Nov 1996 09:13:37 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199611151713.JAA00537@freefall.freebsd.org> Received: by salty.phbtsus.com (1.38.193.4/16.2) id AA23031; Fri, 15 Nov 1996 10:12:29 -0700 Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 10:12:29 -0700 From: Wes Peters To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Troubled FreeBSD installation In-Reply-To: References: <199611140314.UAA00254@obie.softweyr.com> Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Wes Peters wrote: % I've been trying for two days now to install this SNAPSHOT. I've tried % two different disk drives, WD 1.0 and 1.0 G IDE drives, on three % different systems (Gateway P5/90, Gateway 4DX2-66V, and generic % 486/33). In each case, I get the OS installed via the internet from % ftp.freebsd.org, but when I reboot the boot manager gives me the % F? prompt and cannot boot from the hard disk. Doug White replied: > In all these cases, it is because the geometry is misdetected on the > target disk. Try reinstalling, this time put a small DOS partition on the > disk, then delete it from the install program and put FreeBSD over it. On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Wes Peters wrote: % I wrote earlier about having trouble installing the latest 2.2 SNAP % over the net. I've moved home now, and taken a hard drive with me, % and now have the following situation: % % My system at home has FreeBSD 2.1.5 installed on sd0. I removed my % wd0, which holds Win95, and put my drive from work in it's place. % I installed 2.1.5-RELEASE from my scsi CD-ROM; everything went fine. % When I reboot, however, I cannot boot from the IDE drive. This is the % same behavior I noted at work. Doug White writes: > Hm, it would appear the boot block on the disk is damaged or something so > that the bootblocks don't appear. What does fdisk report on the disk in > the way of partitions? Actually, you were right the first time. Apparently the bootblocks have the location of the boot code embedded in them somehow (probably when disklabel writes the bootblocks). When I finally re-installed using the *real* disk geometry, rather than the default lame-brain "LBA" mode, everything worked fine. I've got 2.1.5-RELEASE installed on the machine now, running off a WD21000 (wd0), with a WD21600 (wd2) for storage. This is going to be the CVS server for my workgroup at work; a very important machine. Thanks for the help. I nominate Doug as "Keeper of the FreeBSD Questions flame." ;^) -- I'd rather be sailing. Wes Peters softweyr@xmission.com