Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 22:23:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian O'Shea <b_oshea@yahoo.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Boot loader doesn't see [root filesystem on] ATA disk after successful install Message-ID: <20050511052328.2076.qmail@web50902.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: 6667
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--- Joel <rees@ddcom.co.jp> wrote:
>
> > ... This system also has
> > a SCSI disk (disk2) which has an older release of FreeBSD installed.
> > That is the FFS and swap partitions that you see in the lsdev output
> > below.
>
> Does that mean it boots the system on the SCSI disk?
There is a boot loader installed in the MBR of both disks, but I am
trying to boot the IDE disk from the loader on its own MBR. I didn't
try booting the loader from the SCSI disk and then having it try to
boot the IDE disk, but I don't think it would make a difference. I'll
give it a try tomorrow though, just for the sake completeness.
I can boot the system that is installed on the SCSI disk from its
own loader, or from the loader on the IDE disk's MBR. I'm starting to
regret going the cheap way with an IDE disk!
> BIOS boot order issues?
No, because it boots the boot loader program from the MBR of the IDE
disk. In the 'lsdev' output, disk1 (BIOS drive C:) is my IDE disk,
and that is the value of currdisk ("disk1s1a", full output in my
previous post).
> Can the BIOS see the ATA controller for booting? Many cheap (especially
> non-raid) controllers are not directly bootable from the BIOS, in which
> case you have to set the bootloader up to find them after the bootloader
> takes over. (That's the bootloader on the disk that the BIOS boots to,
> of course, which might end up being a disk on the SCSI controller.)
It can boot from the CD-ROM drive, which is on the same ATA controller.
I have both the IDE disk and the CD-ROM drive set to cable select for
their master/slave configuration. Could this be the problem? I'll
try explicitly setting the IDE disk to master and CD-ROM to slave.
> If you can boot from the SCSI, check the dmesg there to see whether the
> ATA controller is recognized by the older system. That wouldn't give an
> absolute answer, but might yield a clue.
The older system can see the CD-ROM drive, so it must be recognizing the
ATA controller. I'll post the relevant dmesg output tomorrow though.
> I hear that it's usually best to just let freeBSD's formatting utilities
> do what they think they should and not try to meddle with that.
Oh, well. Too late for that! Maybe I can set it back to the old
values. However, when I changed the geometry to what the BIOS thought
was correct, the reported disk size was closer to the advertised size.
In both cases though the symptom was the same.
Thanks Joel,
-brian
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