From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jun 28 21:38:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA17233 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 28 Jun 1997 21:38:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cruzio.com (root@cruzio.com [165.227.254.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA17228 for ; Sat, 28 Jun 1997 21:38:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCALNAME (pine51.cruzio.com [165.227.222.51]) by cruzio.com (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA28574 for ; Sat, 28 Jun 1997 21:38:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <33B5E681.6573@cruzio.com> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 21:37:21 -0700 From: "Daniel A. Borlean" Reply-To: bord@cruzio.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Kernel doesn't boot!? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > If your new kernel does not boot, or fails to recognize your devices, do not panic! Fortunately, > BSD has an excellent mechanism for recovering from incompatible kernels. Simply type the > name of the kernel you want to boot from (i.e. ``kernel.old'') at the FreeBSD boot prompt > instead of pressing return. When reconfiguring a kernel, it is always a good idea to keep a > kernel that is known to work on hand. I'm having a very difficult booting my FreeBSD 2.1.6 system into any kernel after having changed some swap space allocation. I've tried to boot into the kernel.old copy of the kernel as is suggested above, but I get an "Invalid format!" message? Here's _exactly_ what I see on the screen when trying to boot the kernel. It always stops at the last line, sometines with a "-" character, and other times with the "/"? Boot: kernel.old dosdev= 80, biosdrive = 0, unit = 0, maj = 0 Invalid format! >> FreeBSD BOOT @ 0x10000: 631/7168 k of memory Usage: [[[0:][wd](0,a)]/kernel][-abcCdghrsv] Use 1:sd(0,a)kernel to boot sd0 if it is BIOS drive 1 Use ? for file list or press Enter for defaults Boot: dosdev= 80, biosdrive = 0, unit = 0, maj = 0 \ I've tried using "kernel" with all the options (abc..) separately with no success. I've also tried using the first usage ([[[0:][wd]..) and my system just locks up; I then have to do a hard boot (pressing the reset button) since a soft boot (CTRL-ATL-DEL) doesn't work. I've tried 1:sd..., but that gives me repetitive error messages. Does anyone know how I'd go about booting into the system successfully? Is there a boot up file for a floppy disk that I may use to boot into the system? (I tried the installation boot floppy, but it doesn't allow me to reach a shell so I can examine my system.) Thanks for any input, Daniel -- -+- -+- -+- | Daniel A. Borlean / bord@cruzio.com \ / \ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ / http://members.cruzio.com/~bord \ \ / Scotts Valley, CA /| http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~bdaniel \ | 408-461-1676 / | /\ -+- /~~~~~~~~~~~~~/-+- \ ^Life iS shOrt! plaY smarT!!^ / -+- /|\/ \/ \_|___^ ^___\_/ \