Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 11:36:16 -0700 (PDT) From: "Timothy P. Sparks" <Timothy.Sparks@GDEsystems.COM> To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu Cc: rsnow@lgc.com, gpalmer@freebsd.org, questions@freebsd.org Subject: The Next Level..... Message-ID: <199606101836.LAA26086@gde.GDEsystems.COM>
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Doug, Rob, Gary, et al,
I'm writing in regards to the problems I was having with getting the
boot floppy to recognize the built-in PCI EIDE controller. I tried booting
the system with the "-c" option and using the the visual interface I
deleted everything but the floppy drive, ide drive and system console. I
physically removed the ethernet adapter just to minimize the possibilities.
Still no go. I didn't spend the time to format the 1.6G drive for DOS
because I was confident it would work. I chose a different path....costly,
but effective. Saturday I went out and purchased an Adaptec 2940UW SCSI
controller and an HP 2.1G SCSI hard drive. Once again, I booted using the
"-c" option and using the visual interface, eliminated everything but
the adaptec controller, floppy drive, network card, lpt0 and system
console. Lo and behold, the system booted up and even recognized all
installed components....no conflicts. I actually began to regain some
optimism. I went through the "novice" configuration, allocated the entire
drive(2.1G) to the system and toggled the flag for boot(selection S) and
took the default system labelsand sizes for for /, swap, /var and the
balance allocated to /usr. Next the install program asked which apps I
wanted to install. I selected the full install(700M) and finally it asked
what my installation medium was(Floppy). Of course, then came the required
"Do you really want to do this?" messages and I answered yes. The system
proceeded to go out and do what ever it does and then prompted me to
insert the "root.flp" disk. I did and it continued doing it's thing. Next
it prompted me to insert the first install disk. In my case, that disk
contains /bin.aa - /bin.af plus checksums. Note: These disks were created
using a DOS based machine. The file checksums was reduced to "checksum"
since DOS has an 8 character filename constraint.
What happend next still defies comprehension. I inserted the first load
disk, /bin.aa etc and pressed the enter key. It started to read the disk
and about that time, I accidently hit a key on the keyboard and the system
gave a "PANIC" message crashed and rebooted. The keyboard that I got with
this system has a few keys that have "MS-Windows" symbols on them and that
is one of the keys that I hit. Perhaps this is only a coincidence. I don't
know. Ever since then, though, I can't get the boot disk to get beyond
the "newfs" part of the program. It gives a write error which is covered
by a graphical window message the says "error mounting /mnt/dev/sd0s1e
on /mnt/var". The system then once again proceeds to give a PANIC
message and reboots. I've tried low level reformatting the hard drive
and using a different boot floppy. The results are the same. I did find
the extended error messages by pressing alt-F2 and managed to retrieve
the info "Panic: Page Fault 12" and noticed the other error messages
being displayed with hex codes etc. The systems reboots before I can
copy anything down. Is there anything specific I need to retrieve from
this that will be of use in determining the problem? Is there any way
to over-ride the reboot process so I can get the info?
On a different, forward looking note, I downloaded via FTP, the files
bin/bin.aa - bin/bin.cp, checksums and install.sh. Does install.sh
need to be on the first disk with checksums? Will the fact that
checksums was truncated to checksum cause problems? Do those files
in the bin directory contain the entire load or is that the basic
installation? If so, what other files do I need to get the full install?
None of the readme files that I've found so far document this. Finally,
do any of you know of anyone local to the San Diego area that I may be
able to contact for assistance as well? As I said in a previous email,
in the past, I've only been a "user" of UNIX, with some crude sys admin
experience. There is much about the low level features I haven't been
exposed to.....until now. As always, your assistance is appreciated.
R/
Tim Sparks
--
===========================================================================
Tim Sparks * Logical And Uncle Sam
sparkstp@gdesystems.com * Intelligent doesn't want to hear
* Efficient about any LIES!!!!
* Supportable
===========================================================================
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