From owner-freebsd-stable Fri Oct 27 13: 4:32 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from gatekeeper.veriohosting.com (gatekeeper.veriohosting.com [192.41.0.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC3C137B479; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 13:04:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: by gatekeeper.veriohosting.com; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:04:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from unknown(192.168.1.7) by gatekeeper.veriohosting.com via smap (V3.1.1) id xma027833; Fri, 27 Oct 00 14:03:58 -0600 Received: from vespa.orem.iserver.com (vespa.orem.iserver.com [192.168.1.144]) by orca.orem.veriohosting.com [Verio Web Hosting, Inc. 801.437.0200] (8.8.8) id OAA81690; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:03:57 -0600 (MDT) Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:20:30 -0600 (MDT) From: Fred Clift X-Sender: fred@vespa.orem.iserver.com To: Matt Dillon Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Really odd "BTX halted" problem booting FreeBSD on VALinux h In-Reply-To: <200010271832.e9RIWsk06307@earth.backplane.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG So let me see if I get this -- the recommended way to install is to have fdisk slices, and inside (one of) those slices have FreeBSD lables. However, right now, other than using the program posted in this thread, getting creative with dd is the only way to set up lables like that in an automated way. The only other choice it would seem is to use sysinstall interactively? disklabel -e claims it supports 'leaving the fdisk partition alone' while labling -- would that work? This is interactive too, however. The 'fake' fdisk table that gets put on for dangerously dedicated mode (ie the one inside boot0) has a fake 25 meg partition in it. Wouldn't the problem be solved if we jut put valid info in this 'fake' partition table making this a both 'dedicated' and non-bios confusing 'normal' install at the same time? I have a bunch boxes based on the L440GX+ intel motherboard that get confused by 'dangerously dedicated' labels. If you want real fun, dd boo0 from 3.4 onto the first block of any hard disk in your system and you will be unable to boot _any_ device in your system as the bios gets a wedgie somewhere before the bootloader gets invoked. PXE or other network boot still works and from there you can 'fix' the disk, or you can just yank it from the box too. At any rate, I've found a workaround in that if I put in valid partition info into the boot0 bootblock, the wedgie problem goes away. Am I confused about something? Perhaps I'm mistaken about how things work -- if so, enlighten me, please. -- Fred Clift - fclift@verio.net -- Remember: If brute force doesn't work, you're just not using enough. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message