From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jul 20 7: 2:11 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ingate.uk.neceur.com (ingate.uk.neceur.com [193.116.254.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22B14152D9 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:01:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Jeff.Bond@nectech.co.uk) Received: from internal-mail.uk.neceur.com by ingate.uk.neceur.com id OAA22436; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:58:44 +0100 (BST) Received: from exchange.nectech.co.uk by internal-mail.uk.neceur.com id OAA14340; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:57:55 +0100 (BST) from exchange.nectech.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) id OAA14340 (2.4-8.8.8/3.1.31); Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:57:55 +0100 (BST) Received: by exchange.nectech.co.uk with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) id <30ZXNG1L>; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:58:22 +0100 Message-ID: From: "Bond, Jeffery" To: "'alan17@wizard.net'" Cc: "'FreeBSD questions'" Subject: RE: Disappointment with FreeBSD :-( Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:58:18 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi Alan, I reckon it's a bug in FreeBSD also because I had the same problem ages ago. I believe there is some file in the root directory that you can edit, but that didn't work for me. I hate to say it, but Redhat 6 is far easier to install in my opinion. Try moving your secondary master onto the primary controller as a slave and see if that works. The way I got round it was to boot it using 'wd2a' (or similar) at the Boot: prompt, and then recompiling the kernel with the root fs hard coded to wd2a. I'm no expert at this, maybe Doug White can help??? By the way, if you can mount and read the FreeBSD root fs using linux, what does your /etc/fstab say? Does that say that root is on wd2a? Jeff > -----Original Message----- > From: alan17@wizard.net [SMTP:alan17@wizard.net] > Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 2:49 PM > To: Jeff.Bond@nectech.co.uk > Subject: Disappointment with FreeBSD :-( > > Hi, Jeff, Now I can't even get my mail to questions@freebsd.org! > > Could you forward this on please? Thanks, Alan > > I am still having problems with booting FreeBSD, despite much > anguish and trial. > > As I previously reported: When I turn on my machine, and enter "bsd" > at the LILO prompt, BSD certainly seems to be booting. The screen > messages start with "Loading bsd . . . " and continue on, using a lot > of terminology that a 'umble Linuxian like meself cannot fathom. But at > the end of the process, here are the lines that appear on the screen: > changing root device to wd1s1a > changing root device to wd1a > error 6: panic: cannot mount root (2) > syncing disks . . . done > > and then I am offered the chance to reboot. > > It seems _extremely_ strange to me that the BSD kernel, installed on > my secondary IDE master, at the beginning of the 6.3 gig hard drive, > thinks that its root partition is on the primary master. Indeed I would > call this a bug in the booting procedure. > > I also find it passing strange that there are AFAIK no boot/root floppy > pairs for BSD. We've had these in Linux for aeons. > > I have just upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.2.10, and I've compiled in > support for just about every file system that is offered, including > UFS. And I can, from Linux, mount the first partition(=slice?) of > my FreeBSD installation, and read/write files there. > > So I have two questions: > > 1. Can anyone suggest an addendum to my lilo.conf that would enable the > "stupid" FreeBSD boot procedure to find where the '/' partition is? > [ Here is the relevant part of my lilo.conf: > # BSD bootable partition config begins > other = /dev/hdc1 > label = bsd > table = /dev/hdc > loader = /boot/chain.b > # BSD bootable partition config ends > ] > > 2. Is there any thing that I can write/delete to, e.g. the stuff in my > FreeBSD /boot directory that will help the FreeBSD boot properly? I > can, as stated, read/write in the FreeBSD directories because I can > mount and read/write the UFS files. > > Do the Free BSD developers read this E-list? Has any developer any > remedy to suggest? > > TIA for help! > > Continuing to struggle . . > > Alan > > -- > Alan McConnell If it can't be abused, it's not freedom. > Pixel Analysis Do not destroy what you cannot create.(L. Szilard) > alan17@wizard.net What a giftless bastard! (Tchaikovsky, about Brahms) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message