Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 05:28:56 +0100 From: Jean-Mark Dupoux <jeanm@dupx.freeserve.co.uk> To: "FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Installing from dos problem Message-ID: <380BF387.A34D1FE6@dupx.freeserve.co.uk>
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In response to advice that more detailed information would help in solving installation problem (sorry if this was a little sketchy first time around) my pc is: 486 dx4 - 160mhz 28 mb DRAM 2gb seagate IDE hdd isa / pci bus motherboard - ALI chipset 487/89 S3 - virge display adapter (some minor peripherals, eg serial // i-o card, sound card etc..) install worked fine through booting from kern / mst floppies and detecting hardware / selecting drivers at floppy boot, (the program was very accurate with device detections) i removed unwanted settings for network and scsi adapters etc in the harware selections screen, and then moved to partition label / editing screen the program detected very accurately disk geometry i.e. geometry from bios / dos-detected / freebsd-detected all matched exactly 4092 cyls /16 heads /63 sectors /512 b per sector, so the settings was easy to make (nearly always "default" or "auto") 1200 mb was given to single dos partition 800mb free space was claimed during installation by freebsd, and then split using <A> auto-option of 60/20/40/735 MB for </>, swap, </var>, </usr> respectively minimum install (only \bin and \manpages) was selected, but the program then ran into trouble. the following messages were the last things displayed before giving up: "extracting bin into / directory", followed by "write failure on transfer", and "wrote -1 bytes of 1024 bytes, unable to transfer from wd0s1" the install then offered to "try extract again", which i clicked "yes" a few times, but the result was still the same. when i rebooted, dos still worked fine, which i could start from the freebsd boot selector (F1/F2) but freebsd did not get past the first line, (returned "no kernel" for every command) It occurred to me afterwards that there may still be an issue with the freebsd slice starting after 1024 cyls, so i backed-up, put in 2 x 160 mb partitions ( 1 each of dos and freebsd) before a 800mb dos partition and the rest was free space to claim for freebsd when i booted from floppies and run install. this was to try installing below 1024 cyls. i then continued with install option selections, put in </> and </usr> in freebsd small sector, <swap>, </var> and </usr/local> in freebsd large sector, chos "minimum install" and hit "ok" the result was exactly the same as before. this was a bit disappointing really, especially since the install program seemed to do such a good job of talking to the system for detecting devices etc .. i hope this more detailed information can bring us a little nearer to some kind of an answer anyhow. Jean-Mark To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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