Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:35:47 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Hugh LaMaster <lamaster@nren.nasa.gov> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Disk partitioning on laptops (was: Making boot floppies (was: BSD Powerpak 4.0)) Message-ID: <20000829093547.C10992@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.05.10008280939300.13957-100000@kinkajou.arc.nasa.gov>; from lamaster@nren.nasa.gov on Mon, Aug 28, 2000 at 09:47:52AM -0700 References: <20000827110935.D90379@wantadilla.lemis.com> <Pine.GSO.4.05.10008280939300.13957-100000@kinkajou.arc.nasa.gov>
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On Monday, 28 August 2000 at 9:47:52 -0700, Hugh LaMaster wrote: > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2000, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> Ah, this is the first time you mentioned it's a laptop. We had some >> problems a while back with some broken BIOSes which caused a valid >> bootable CD to fail to boot. Yes, that's unfortunate. > >>> The laptop is a Toshiba with 160MB ram, 6.2 gig IBM drive, >>> 3Com-Noteworthy card (is not a Wincard). >> >> But it is a modem, right? We'll look at that later if necessary. > > Just an aside: for some reason, I haven't been able to use the > bootfloppy sysinstall partition label program to label (let alone newfs) > a Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop that I have. It has a 6 GB drive; > the first 3 GB is a FAT32 partition. I have tried repeatedly > to label/newfs the next partition, which is most of the next 3 GB, > with a FreeBSD partition, to no avail. I assume that it is a BIOS > problem. I've never had this problem before, but then, I never > tried to use FreeBSD on a laptop before. Is there a known problem > with the Inspiron 3500? I userstand that I will also have a problem > with the PCMCIA card controller/cards/IRQ's later; I just wish that > I could get to that point and experience those problems. I haven't heard of this before. I have an Inspiron 7500 myself, and I had no trouble installing FreeBSD on it, though there are some strangenesses: FreeBSD currently doesn't support the sound hardware, though beta versions are available, and the BIOS expects Microsoft partitions to the point where it can no longer find the save-to-disk partition. I don't know what to do about this one. Also, if you use a FreeBSD boot manager, the builtin "virus protection" claims that the boot sector is "infected" with the "bloodhound virus" and tries to "fix" it for you. Don't let it: you'll trash the boot manager. In your case, it would be nice to know exactly what you did and what happened. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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