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Date:      Sat, 22 Jan 2000 14:48:37 -0800
From:      Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>
To:        Stan Brown <stanb@netcom.com>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Stable List)
Subject:   Re: How to make a floppy to boot a kernel on the hard disk? 
Message-ID:  <200001222248.OAA04891@mass.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 22 Jan 2000 15:07:40 EST." <200001222007.MAA29191@netcom.com> 

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> 	Problem i the machine is an old 486, and the disk I am trying to use is
> 	a 20G.
> 
> 	I can boot off the install disks, and get FreeBSD installed, but it
> 	won't boot, because the BIOS is too confused to pass any useful
> 	information.

What do you mean particularly by this?  Pass to whom?

> 	Is there a way to build a floppy loader, or some sort of boot disk that
> 	will boot the kernel on the hard disk, and mount the root partition on
> 	the hard disk as /

Yes, it should.  Make a UFS floppy and install the bootblocks on it with
disklabel -B.  Put a kernel in /, create a /boot containing the loader and
a loader.rc file that looks like this:

load /kernel
set currdev=disk1s1a:
autoboot 10

Note that 'disk1s1a' assumes that the second BIOS disk is your harddisk, 
and you've installed FreeBSD in the first slice of that disk.  If your 
BIOS is incredibly stupid, this may still not work, but it's worth a try.

Let me know how you go; there are more tricks that can be played if this 
doesn't work.


-- 
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\  Mike Smith
\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself,  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime.             \\  msmith@cdrom.com




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