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Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 23:19:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: spork <spork@super-g.com>
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To: questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Booting off of second disk
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Hello,

This one is confusing, and it's my first attempt on a machine that really
doesn't want FBSD on it...

The box is a Compaq ProSignia 486/66 with built-in SCSI that FBSD does not
recognize.  I had an extra Adaptec EISA laying around, so I used that and
a very old Seagate 1G for the FBSD install.  There is still a 300-ish meg
SCSI drive (weird cabling) that has DOS on it.

The install went fine, and I can boot via floppy by typing in: 

boot:1:sd(0,a)

All is well until a reboot.  I tried installing booteasy tonite, and it
does work, but it sees two drives where FBSD sees one and apparently some
of the info it passes to the kernel convinces the kernel that FBSD resides
on sd1.  The boot will fail with a panic when the kernel tries to mount
the nonexistant sd1a as root.  Again, if I type the same incantation after
booteasy gets the kernel going, all is well.

I'm a bit confused about the whole PC booting process, and would be
interested in any online docs about how this works...  And if anyone knows
if what I want to do is possible, I'd love to hear it.  Might OS-BS be a
better bet, in that it is more configurable?

Thanks,

Charles

BTW- I am *very* happy with the performance of the OS on a 486/66 with
only 8 megs.  It's simply amazing compared to when it had NT 3.51...