Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 08:47:40 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com> Cc: FreeBSD mobile Mailing List <freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Here is what IBM thinks about using FreeBSD on their newer Thinkpads Message-ID: <20001130084740.K48277@echunga.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <14885.15275.584459.919834@nomad.yogotech.com>; from nate@yogotech.com on Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 10:23:55AM -0700 References: <3A23D5BD.5CF72F4F@dccnet.com> <200011281624.eASGOdF25354@mass.osd.bsdi.com> <14885.15275.584459.919834@nomad.yogotech.com>
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On Wednesday, 29 November 2000 at 10:23:55 -0700, Nate Williams wrote: >>>> FreeBSD - Unable to boot OS after installation on >>>> IBM Thinkpad A20, A21, T20, T21, or X20. >>> >>> Question: Does IBM reserve space on the HDD of their laptops for system BIOS >>> that would cause such a problem in the event of a dedicated installation? >> >> No. Some fool at IBM (or whomever they contracted the BIOS development >> out to) decided to use partition ID 165 for the suspend-to-disk >> partition, and the IBM BIOS gets very, very upset when it finds what it >> thinks is an enormous suspend-to-disk partition on the disk. > > I'm pretty sure that's not the case. In fact, I'm almost positive > that's not the case, as we have a number of FreeBSD machines running on > these boxes. > > However, what *is* happening is that the boot-blocks are too big (this > was the case in 4.1, and was fixed in 4.2, something about using up > 2-sectors or somesuch) which causes the IBM BIOS to barf on it for some > reason. > > If you install older/newer bootlblocks, it works fine. Unfortunately, > these boxes became popular around the time that FreeBSD 4.1 was > released, so anyone that attempted to install with it made their > computers unable to recognize the disks. > > It's really a 'BIOS' problem, since if you use older (smaller) > bootblocks and the partition of 165, it works fine. Have you tried it? The experiences of those who have disagrees completely with this statement. Look in particular at the reports of Ken Key's experiments. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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