Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 13:03:02 -0700 From: Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com> To: Mark Thomas <thomas@clark.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Install problems - BIOS? Message-ID: <376BF776.807EA5FA@3-cities.com> References: <3.0.6.32.19990619110430.008b3520@pop3.clark.net>
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Mark Thomas wrote: > > I'm currently doing an FTP install of a Micron P133 system. I suspect I've got one of the 'bad' BIOS's that won't deal with FreeBSD. Just hoping for some confirmation. > > The system: > > Micron P133 Millenia MB Phoenix BIOS V4.04 (Flashed to the most recent version) > Adaptec 2940AU SCSI controller BIOS V1.30 > Seagate ST15230N HD > Iomega 1G Jaz > Iomega 100M Zip > Plextor CD-ROM 6x > > There are no other OS's on this system. I've tried all reasonable combinations of dedicated/partition geometries on the drive. I've tried with DOS/Other > 1 GB drive support in both the system and SCSI BIOS. W95/98 both install fine on this machine, so I don't suspect hardware. I have a Micron Millennia and it came with a Phoenix 4.04 BIOS. That particular BIOS (M54HI on my system) has real problems but I thought they were only with IDE drives. Revision 11 was supposed to take care of the Y2K problems. Micro Firmware has an upgrade to Phoenix 4.05 for the Micron Millennia that gets rid of most of the IDE problems such as IDE drives larger than 4GB and introduces additional PCI features. It is item number M5HS10 and costs $79. The have other products for BIOSes other than the M54HI. I have had BIOS'es that won't deal with dangerously dedicated drives but have no problem with the DOS mbr. They would not boot past the BIOS drive check at startup, which is perfomed immediately after the memory check. It seemed to be an interaction with S.M.A.R.T and the HD. Yours isn't accepting either MBR. That model Hawk 4 has 3992 cylinders, 19 heads, and 110 sectors and I kind of wonder if you are bumping into the 1023 cylinder problem. The support for > 1GB drives would have to be turned on otherwise the 1023 cylinder boot rule would limit the first partition to less than 1094,691,840 bytes. Kent > > In all cases the install process works without apparent problems. It looks like all hardware detects correctly. > > With any setup that includes a 'dangerously dedicated' drive, the system fails to find the HD on reboot and reports 'Read Error' until a floppy is inserted. > > With a config that includes a non dedicated setup, the boot loader starts, with the choices: > > F1 FreeBSD > F5 Drive 0 > > Default: F1 > > Selecting either results in a keyboard beep. Waiting for a timeout produces nothing. > > If anyone has any ideas, can confirm this is a BIOS problem, or sees something I've missed, I'd appreciate a heads up. > > Thanks, > > Mark > --- > thomas@clark.net ---> http://www.clark.net/pub/thomas > PBEM Eldritch --------> http://www.pmpro.com/eldritch > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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