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Date:      Sun, 11 Feb 1996 14:41:02 -0500
From:      lihsin@astro.phys.clemson.edu (Lih-Sin The)
To:        msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: need help on freebsd installation
Message-ID:  <9602111941.AA25548@astro.phys.clemson.edu>

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Thanks for your respond and accusing me of :)

msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au wrote:
> (lots and lots of details; this is an excellent bugreport!)

> Lih-Sin The stands accused of saying:
>    I have tried many times to install FreeBSD 2.1 from Walnut Creek CDROM
> January 1996 to our 486dx2 PC with 8MBRAM, Adaptec 1540CF scsi controller, 
> 325MB IDE drive and MICROPOLIS 4110-09NB_Nov189F 1.02GB scsi disk (scsi id 0),
> and NEC scsi cdrom (scsi id 4), but always find trouble during the
> installation. The sequence/procedure of the installation is shown below.
> I'll appreciate very much if you can give me suggestions on how to pass
> through the installation. I might missed some installation procedure.

>> You have a busmastering SCSI controller; it's possible that your motherboard
>> or CPU doesn't work properly with it.  Try turning off all caching in your
>> BIOS (CPU internal cache and motherboard cache) and see if you get the
>> same crash.  Your install procedure looks fine.

> 0. in dos, make bootfloppy from cdrom, by typing: makeflp.
> 1. boot freebsd with floppy  or from cdrom by typing: install
> 2. then "Welcome to FreeBSD window" appears
>   choose: Novice installation
> 3. choose sd0 ScSI disk device with spacebar then carriage return
> 4. a screen show disk name: sd0
>   disk geometry: 1002 cyls/64 head/32 sectors
>    offset     size      End    Name     Ptype    Desc    Subtype    Flags
>        0       32       31      -        6     unused       0
>       32   901088   901119   sd0s1       1     unknown    131
>   901120   124928  1026047   sd0s2       1     unknown    130
>  1026048  1027832  2053879      -        6     unused       0  <-reverse video
> 5. type C for creating a partition
>   with specified size : 1027832
>   and the screen look as:
>   disk name: sd0
>   disk geometry: 1002 cyls/64 head/32 sectors
>   offset     size      End    Name     Ptype    Desc    Subtype    Flags
>        0       32       31      -        6     unused       0
>       32   901088   901119   sd0s1       1     unknown    131
>   901120   124928  1026047   sd0s2       1     unknown    130
>  1026048  1026048  2052095   sd0s3       3     freebsd    165  <-reverse video
>  2052096     1784  2053879      -        6     unused       0
> 6. type: S set bootable
> 7. type: Q for quit
> 8. then "install Boot Manager for drive sd0?" screen appears,
>   choose: None with arrow and then spacebar
>           for Leave the master boot record untouched.
> 9. then "FreeBSD Disklabel Editor" Screen appears.
>    choose: A for Auto Defaults for All!
> 10. then the screen looks like:
>                    FreeBSD Disklabel Editor
>    disk: sd0     Partition name: sd0s3     Free: 0 blocks (0MB)
>    Part   Mount      Size     Newfs
>    wd0s1  <none>     325MB    DOS
>    sd0s3a  /          32MB    UFS Y
>    sd0s3b <none>      27MB    SWAP
>    sd0s3e  /var       30MB    UFS Y
>    sd0s3f  /usr      411MB    UFS Y
> 11. then, type: Q finish
> 12. then "Choose Distributions" screen appears,
>    choose: X-User
> 13. then "XFree86 3.1.2-S distribution" screen appears,
>     choose: Basic  and select all components with spacebars
>     choose: Server, select SVGA, VGA16, Mono
>     choose: Fonts, select all fonts
>     choose: Exit
> 14. Finally, choose an installation medium
>     Install from a FreeBSD cdrom
> 15. then "User Confirmation Requested" screen appears,
>     choose: Yes to confirm continuing installation.
> 16. then Information Dialog scrren appears,
    .
>>     making a new file system  on /dev/rsd0a
>>     copying initial device files
>>     doing newfs -b 8192 -f 2048 -u 2633 /mnt/dev/rsd0s3f
>>     doing newfs -b 8192 -f 2048 -u 4096 /mnt/dev/rsd0s3e
>>     copying the boot floppy to /stand on root filesystem

>... this all shows that the SCSI disk works OK and no major problems ...

>>     Loading root iamge from: cd0a
>>     Extracting bin into / directory ....
>>     up to about 19%
>>     panic: bad dir
>>     syncing disk.... 13 13 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 ........giving up
>>     Automatic reboot in 15 seconds - press a key on the console to abort
>>     or at other time gives me Message:
>>     Write failure on transfer! (wrote -1 bytes of 10240 bytes)
>>     Unable to transfer the bin distribution from cd0a.
>>     do you want to try to retrieve it again?  choose yes
>>     This happens many times, and i have not had any success yet.
   

> I presume it's not always exactly 19% ? 
      Yes, sometimes it went only to 10% sometimes more than that.

>>     This happens many times, and i have not had any success yet.

> Try with caches disabled and let us know how you go.
> 
  ok, i tried your suggestion shown below in the AMIBIOS 1993 "ADVANCE CMOS 
      SETUP" :

      External Cache Memory :  Disabled
      Internal Cache Memory :  Disabled

    and this does not solve the problem above.

>-- 
   after Information Dialog of : 
   Copying the boot floppy to /stand on root filesystem,
   i type alt-f2 to show more complete diagnostic, and it shows:

   .
   .
   warning calculated sectors per cylinder (2633) disagress with 
   disklabel (2048)
   /mnt/dev/rsd0s3f 8142560 sectors in 320 cylinders of 1 tracks, 
   2633 sectors.
   411.4 MB in 20 cylinders (16c/g, 20.57MB/g, 2496 i/g)
   superblock backup (for fsck -b #) at 
   ......, 800464,
   warning calculated sectors per cylinder (4096) disagrees with 
   disklabel (2048).
   .
   .
   /mnt/stand/etc/services
   1146 bclosk
   /mnt: bad dir ino 2 at offset 256: mangled entry

   sometime it went further to

   /mnt/dev/rsdos3e: 61446 sectors in 15 cylinders of 1 tracks, 
   4096 sectors
   30.0 MB in 1 cyl groups (16 c/g, 32.00 MB/g, 3840 i/g)
   superblock backup (for fsck -b #) at:
   .. 32:
   .
   .
   .
   DEBUG: request for bin/bin.tgz from CDROM
   .
   .
   /mnt: bad dir ino 181  at offset 639: mangled entry

   panic: bad dir
   syncing disk.... 13 13 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 ........giving up
   Automatic reboot in 15 seconds - press a key on the console to abort


   my guess it may be related to disk geometry, but i do not know what
   disk geometry should be used. during novice installation, disk geometry
   shown as: 1002 cyl/64hd/32sect.
   When i checked micropolis web site, for hp workstation the disktab
   shown 1052 MB 512 bytes/secto, 5400 rpm, ns=93, nt=9, nc=1226
   and for SUN workstation, ncyl=1998,nhead=9,nsect=114.
   is the problem above due to disk geometry?

cc: questions@freebsd.org, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au



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