From owner-freebsd-questions  Mon Aug  9 10:18:36 1999
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from frogmella.linnet.org (frogmella.linnet.org [212.240.194.174])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2571E150D2
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Mon,  9 Aug 1999 10:18:22 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from brian@linnet.org)
Received: by frogmella.linnet.org (Postfix, from userid 500)
	id 0D84086B6; Mon,  9 Aug 1999 18:16:18 +0100 (BST)
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 18:16:18 +0100
From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Booting from large IDE drive, not first partition
Message-ID: <19990809181618.A11386@linnet.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.4us
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I've searched the archives and can't find
anything recent regarding large IDE hard drives.

I have installed 3.2-19990809-STABLE on a workstation with a 13GB hard
drive, which is sliced like this:

    s1    2GB  Windows95 FAT16
    s2    6GB  Extended (2GB FAT16, rest in reserve)
    s3    5GB  FreeBSD

Unfortunately, I am unable to make it boot. The FreeBSD bootloader is in the
MBR[1], and at boot time it asks me

    F1   DOS
    F3   FreeBSD

However, when I press F3, all I get is a beep. F1 boots Windows fine.

I have managed to boot with the kern/mfsroot/fixit floppies, mount all the
partitions, "chroot /mnt /usr/local/bin/bash" then "disklabel -B wd0" which
is accepted, but it still won't boot after that. Any more than that is
beyond me, I'm afraid.

The machine is a Gateway box (GP7-450 is what the label says) and the BIOS
setup says that the disk is in LBA mode.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated as to how I can either:
(1) fix the bootloader; or
(2) boot a kernel from floppy disk and have it continue to load with wd0a as
its root filesystem (not ideal but it would be acceptable)

(OK, I admit it, I am a Linux user. However I am trying to avoid installing
LILO or just giving up :-)

Please cc me on any reply as I'm not on the list.

Many thanks,

Brian Candler.

[1] Amusingly, Norton Antivirus thinks that the FreeBSD bootloader is the
Bloodhound virus. I tell it not to attempt to fix it, of course.


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message