Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 11:33:24 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: "Geff Hanoian" <boing@boing.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fully Dedicated HD may clobber some BIOS' Message-ID: <199902041933.LAA16053@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 04 Feb 1999 08:48:15 PST." <001a01be505e$2c4a0930$48ff020a@hanoiang.tms.toyota.com>
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> >Just a note for everyone when partitioning your HD for FreeBSD, if you use > >the entire disk "dedicated" instead of using a DOS/other compatible master > >boot record, some BIOS' won't load the FreeBSD MBR and will die. (And, I > >surmise, some BIOS' may think it's a virus.) > > > FYI, this is in the FAQ (somewhere). HP is one of the "offending" vendors. > Apparently the do some sort of "checking" to make sure there are dos > partitions on the disk. If dos partitions do not exist the HP vectra's > print, "Read Error." User friendliness at it's best. This is completely and utterly wrong, and I will thank you in advance for a) never repeating it again, and b) telling me where it is in the FAQ so that I can remove it. The "read error" message comes from the boot1 code as it is unable to locate the boot2 code. The error is caused because the "dangerously dedicated" layout contains bogus information which confuses the BIOS. Once the BIOS is confused, boot1 doesn't have a hope of locating boot2, hence the error. Other symptoms of this include the BIOS locking up before loading boot1 and spontaneous reboots just after reading boot1. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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