Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 16:26:18 -0400 (EDT) From: djv@bedford.net To: David.Larkin@DJL.co.uk Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD still on disk ? How to boot :- Booting Default: F? Message-ID: <199808112026.QAA19618@lucy.bedford.net> In-Reply-To: <199808111942.7928600@bedford.net> from David Larkin at "Aug 11, 98 08:43:41 pm"
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David Larkin wrote
[Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> I reported a problem I was having booting FreeBSD after a system
> crash destroyed W95 & boot manager ( see original report below)
> Thanks for the encouraging input from djv@bedford.net and
> Rick Hamell (hamellr@dsinw.com), but I have a few supplementary
> questions.
>
> > Can anyone confirm that
> > my FreeBSD installation is still there, and that the challenge
> > is how to boot it.
> >
> > I wrote a boot manager to the first disk (wd0), and now when I
> > boot I get the following
> >
> > F5 .... disk 2
> > Default: F5
> > F5 .... disk 2
> > Default: F?
> >
> > what happens when you press F5?
>
> After pressing <F5>
> F5 .... disk 2
> Default: F?
>
> djv@bedford.net commented ........................
> djv> Hmm. Not bootable, or booteasy isn't cooperating.
> djv> Try booting a floppy, then you can try to access the disk
> djv> by mounting partitions and fsck'ing etc.
>
> Booting from floppy is OK, but could you advise further on
> mounting the partitions
> My understanding is limited here, but I've tried the following
> - boot floppy
> - go into Fixit
> - bring up shell (Alt F4)
>
> > mount /dev/wd1a /mnt
> > /dev/wd1a on /mnt : Incorrect superblock
This is correct, that partition is (according to fdisk output below)
a MINIX partition.
> > mount /dev/wd1s4a /mnt
> > /dev/wd1s4a on /mnt : No such file or directory
This is the problem. It ought to mount.
On the fixit disk, is there a set of devices for this slice?
They should look like:
[root@castor /dev]# ll wd1s4*
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000a Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x00050008 Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4a
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x00050009 Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4b
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000a Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4c
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000b Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4d
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000c Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4e
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000d Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4f
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000e Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4g
brw-r----- 1 root operator - 0, 0x0005000f Aug 11 16:14 wd1s4h
[root@castor /dev]#
and
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000a Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x00050008 Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4a
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x00050009 Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4b
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000a Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4c
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000b Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4d
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000c Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4e
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000d Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4f
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000e Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4g
crw-r----- 1 root operator - 3, 0x0005000f Aug 11 16:14 rwd1s4h
[root@castor /dev]#
On a production system, these are created by
cd /dev
sh MAKEDEV wd1s4a
I hope (but don't know) that the same should work on a fixit-floppy
boot.
> > mount /dev/wd1s4 /mnt
> > /dev/wd1s4 on /mnt : Device not configured
Hmm.
> Any help to interpret this information would be appreciated.
>
> Rick Hamell commented .....................
> Rick> Looks like Windows 95 corrupted itself and took the partions with
> Rick> it. Your best bet would be to try to rebuild your partions using the
> Rick> exact same parameters you had before. At least make sure your FreeBSD
>
> Rick> partion is the same. Windows 95 will have to be reinstalled no matter
>
> Rick> what. Well, that's not exactly true, it might be saved but it would
> be
> Rick> best and far less time consuming to reinstall.
>
> I'm not concerned about the W95 installation, and I only intend rebuilding
> FreeBSD
... that's the spirit...
Ah SO! This opens a new line of possibilities! That whole first
disk is up for at least temporary use by FREEBSD. If I were more alert
I should have spotted this before.
Do a fresh install on that wd0... Get it to work. (just do a small
installation ... no need for X, kernel sources, blah blah.)
Then we will have a MUCH easier time getting at the second disk.
It might, after a fresh BSD install on wd0, be perfectly OK.
(See that MAKEDEV clue offered earlier).
> Does this mean make a new installation (sysinstall) and then partion the
> disk
> using the FDISK partition editor / Disklabel editor, as described in
> "The complete FreeBSD by Greg Lehey Second Edition" p57-62
> Will this overwrite any files I have there, or will it be OK as long
> as I use the same partition sizes.
Just fdisking won't change files. Careful careful.
Leave the /second disk/ alone. All your BSD stuff is on wd1, not 0,
right?
> If I use the wrong partition sizes, what happens ?
>
> ORIGINAL PROBLEM REPORT follows
> > I was running FreeBSD 2.2.5 and W95 happily on my machine.
> > wd0 contained W95, and wd1 contained FreeBSD
> > Suddenly while running W95, everything went "pop" and I wasn't
> > able to boot either.
> > So, booting from floppy, using the "fixit" option, and running
> > fdisk I get the following :-
> >
> > fdisk wd0
> > *** working on device /dev/rwd0 ***
> > parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
> > cylinders=4095 heads=16 sectors/track=63 1008 blks/cyl)
> > Figure below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
> > parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
> > cylinders=4095 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)
> > Media sector size is 512
> > Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
> > Information for partition 1 is:
> > <UNUSED>
> > Information for partition 2 is:
> > <UNUSED>
> > Information for partition 3 is:
> > <UNUSED>
> > Information for partition 4 is:
> > <UNUSED>
Hosed, essentially.
> > fdisk wd1
> > *** working on device /dev/rwd1 ***
> > parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
> > cylinders=4095 heads=16 sectors/track=63 1008 blks/cyl)
> > Figure below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
> > parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
> > cylinders=4095 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)
> > Media sector size is 512
> > Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
> > Information for partition 1 is:
> > sysid 128, (Minix 1.1 ....... 1.4a)
> > start -61531, size 63 (0 Meg), flag 0
This looks a little queer to me. Sorry I didn't spot it before.
Do you really have a Minix installation? IF not, I'd run
BSD fdisk on this, and set it to start 0 size 0 sysid 0.
> > beg: cyl 0/ sector 0/ head0;
> > end: cyl 0/ sector 1/ head1;
> > Information for partition 2 is:
> > sysid 0,(unused)
> > start 0, size 0 (0 Meg), flag d1
> > beg: cyl 0/ sector 62/ head 251;
> > end: cyl 0/ sector 0/ head 0
> > Information for partition 3 is:
> > <UNUSED>
> > Information for partition 4 is:
> > sysid 165, (FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
> > start 1, size 4127759 (2015 Meg), flag 80
> > beg: cyl 0/ sector 2/ head 0;
> > end: cyl 1022/ sector 63/ head 15
This partition looks ok.
Good luck...
Dave
--
"Today, machines sit on our desks and spend the overwhelming majority
of their cycles doing nothing more important than blinking a cursor."
--William Dickens
http://www.feedmag.com/html/feedline/98.07dickens/98.07dickens_master.html
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