Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 18:44:06 -0600 (MDT) From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: rosko@mpath.com (Steve Roskowski) Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: install friendly? Message-ID: <199808040044.SAA28404@obie.softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980803115454.0155c100@mail.mpath.com> from Steve Roskowski at "Aug 3, 98 11:54:54 am"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Steve Roskowski recently said:
> two problems
>
> first - as a "new" user of FreeBSD, the install procedure drove me
> absolutely nuts. After 8 hours, I handed it over to a professional. 2
> days, 8 reinstalls of Windows98 & FreeBSD and now it works. More on this
> later if it matters.
>
> Second - the system does not recogonize my IDE ZIP drive. It is the slave
> on the second built in IDE controller, with the first controller supporting
> an HD and CDROM. The master slot on the second IDE bus is vacant. The
> after finding the first IDE controller, it looks for (from memory) wdc0 at
> 0x170 (proper address from Win98 for 2nd IDE) and does not find anything,
> so it skips the ZIP drive. Suggestions? Given my painful intitial install
> experience I am a little gun-shy about moving things around without input.
You can't use an IDE bus without a master on it; the "controller" is on
the master drive. Put the drive on a working bus.
> - on the install, some details
> system has an IDE HD on the built in controller and an Adapted PCI card
> with a 4 gig drive. The target configuration was Win95 on the IDE and
> FreeBSD on SCSI. Apparently after many many attempts this is not possible.
> Although all of the tools blindly let you proceed, when FreeBSD tries to
> boot it panics, unable to find root, and promptly writes a boot record into
> the bottom of the Win95 drive, corrupting it. The entire system is then
> dead, forcing a complete reinstall.
I ran a system like this, we Virus95 on IDE and FreeBSD on SCSI
for years. I don't recommend it; with Ultra-IDe drives I suggest
all IDE for "workstation" machines and al SCSI for heavily used
servers, but it should work fine. If you can provide some DETAILS
about what your hardware is, and what the actual problems encountered
were, it can probably be diagnosed quickly.
> The system now works with a small root partition on the IDE drive for
> FreeBSD along with Win95, and the usr partition on SCSI. Acceptable, but I
> sure wish the docs or the tools would have saved me 3 days.
Did you start by reading the instructions, the hardware FAQ, etc.?
the most common problem is users assuming "Win95 works on this, so
my hardware must be good/ok/usable/not complete garbage." None of
the above is necessarily true, just because it works with Win95.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199808040044.SAA28404>