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Date:      Fri, 7 Jul 1995 14:07:25 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Howard Lew <hlew@genome.Stanford.EDU>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Cc:        bugs@freebsd.org
Subject:   booteasy broken???
Message-ID:  <Pine.SUN.3.91.950707132425.13488B-100000@marmite.Stanford.EDU>

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Hi guys!

More boot problems (they're different)

1) Can't boot an OS that's not on the First Drive.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous 4-22 SNAP setup: 486 DX4-100, 12 MB RAM, 540 MB (wd0), 130 MB (wd1)

      540 MB - master (freebsd & dos), 130 MB - slave (freebsd swap & dos)

With the old SNAP, I could boot FreeBSD (4-22 SNAP) and DOS from the 540MB.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current 2.0.5-6/22 SNAP setup:  486 DX4-100, 12 MB RAM, 1.2Gig (wd0),
540 MB (wd1), 130 MB (wd2)

      1.2Gig - master (all freebsd with swap), 540 MB - slave (all DOS)
      130 MB - master on second ide port (all DOS)

With 2.0.5-950622-SNAP, I can boot up FreeBSD from the 1.2Gig, but 
booteasy bootmanager can not boot up DOS from the 540 MB.  It 
always stops with the Non-System Disk Error.  If I wanted to boot up the 
old 4-22 SNAP release from the 540 MB, that works.  But I can't boot up DOS.

So I have tried doing these things (all of these are separate things I 
have tried doing):

a) Remove the 1.2 Gig, set the 540 MB back as Master, and see if I can 
boot DOS and FreeBSD.  They both can boot up with no problems.  I guess 
that means the 540 MB should be bootable.

b) Use Fdisk to delete all the partitions on the 540 MB.  Use fdisk /mbr 
to clear the mbr from the 540 MB (this is done with the 540 MB as master 
with no 1.2 Gig plugged in).  Then use fdisk to create the large DOS 
only partition).  No special drivers used (no Ontrack DM).  LBA is on 
from the CMOS.  Formatted the 540 MB and installed DOS on the 540 MB)  It 
boots okay.  Plug the 1.2 Gig back in, set the jumpers on the 
540MB for slave again.  Using the bootmanager to choose the second disk (DOS)
gives me the identical 2.0.5-950622SNAP boot from the 1.2 Gig.

c) If I manually install booteasy1.4 on both drives.  Again, it boots up 
FreeBSD 2.0.5-SNAP fine, but says Non-System Disk Error if I choose Disk 
2 and DOS.

d) Ok, I have also tried osbs20b8, and it also says non-system disk error.

--------------------------
Now I'm stumped.  Is booteasy broken when it comes to booting a totally
new OS that isn't on the first drive. 

A while back, I had the 850 MB Western Digital (master) with Ontrack DM on a
386-40 with all DOS, and a 540MB Conner (slave) with nothing but FreeBSD. 
Same problem.  It won't boot FreeBSD, but will boot all the operating
systems on the first disk (which is just DOS).  BTW, I never did fix this
problem... I still use the boot.flp to boot up FreeBSD 2.0.5R. 

Now the situation here, 1.2 Gig Western Digital (master) without Ontrack
DM on a 486-100 with all FreeBSD, and a 540MB (slave) with nothing but
DOS.  The boot manager will boot the OS on the first Drive, but not the OS
on the second drive unless it is also the same.  In other words, FreeBSD
is on the first drive, so it can boot any version of FreeBSD from either
the first drive or the second drive.  DOS is not installed on the first
drive, so it can't be booted from anywhere but floppy. 


Any suggestions?  I have not tried creating a DOS partition on the 1.2 
Gig because I wanted to give it all to FreeBSD.  Or is that the only 
alternative?  Is the Linux LILO any better?

Thanks in advance for any help.



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