Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 14:12:43 -0700 (PDT) From: <billy@idiom.com> To: Atle Veka <atlev@mail.flyingcroc.net> Cc: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Problem with automated install (Missing operating system) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0206191404090.82343-100000@idiom.com> In-Reply-To: <20020619112924.V58576-100000@gilliam.users.flyingcroc.net>
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Some harddrives don't let you access the disk directly. I've encountered this with some Seagate drives. What happens is the install queries for hard drive geometry to figure out where to put the boot blocks (boot0, boot1, loader). Since the drive has this weird thing on it it gives back bogus geometry values so the boot blocks end up being written to the wrong sectors. The standard freebsd install (sysinstall) actually detects this, but disklabel and fdisk don't, or at least not regularly or reliably. When sysinstall detects the bogus geometry it installs what it thinks is the correct geomtery which for me has always worked. If you do a standard FreeBSD install at some point you will usually get a pop up letting you know that it got a bogus geometry. The work around is to preinstall the disk once with sysinstall and then ignore the part in the future where you are supposed to write the boot blocks. I havn't figured out how to detect the bogus geometry or what to use in place, however it hasn't been that important for me. ps. this is just my experience, I am by no means certain that is actually what happens, but that is what seems to be happeneing. -billy On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Atle Veka wrote: > > Hi all, > > I got no reply to my question at the main list, so I'm posting it here as > this list has less traffic and maybe I'll have better luck. It's sort of > on topic, but mainly not.. Sorry :) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > > > Hi, > > A quick intro on what I currently have; I've slapped an install.cfg > (sysinstall conf) onto the mfsroot floppy which installs the distributions > etc that I want. I have one boot disk which requires user interaction > depending on what type of installation, then the correct mfsroot floppy is > put in. > > Problem: On newer systems this all works great. It installs smoothly, > boots up and is ready to go. However, on older systems the install process > itself goes smooth, but then when it boots up the bootstrap says "Missing > operating system". Same disks, same 4.5-RELEASE. > > I've played around with this for some time now, doing manual > disklabel/fdisk commands to try to set up the boot process that somehow > fails on the older machines with no luck. > > Has anyone encountered this problem, or have any ideas on where to look? I > would greatly appreciate any insight. > > > Thanks! > > Atle > - > Flying Crocodile Inc, Unix Systems Administrator > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message
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