From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 5 14:43:42 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from nisser.com (c1870039.telekabel.chello.nl [212.187.0.39]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 587A714D3D for ; Fri, 5 Nov 1999 14:43:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from roelof@nisser.com) Received: from nisser.com (roelof [10.0.0.2]) by nisser.com (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id XAA10994; Fri, 5 Nov 1999 23:47:57 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from roelof@nisser.com) Message-ID: <38235D74.BA09FA70@nisser.com> Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 23:43:00 +0100 From: Roelof Osinga Organization: eboa - engineering buro Office Automation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cjclark@home.com Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: how to boot from floppy disk? References: <199911052203.RAA24600@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Crist J. Clark" wrote: > > I just go with HDD. Like that's better? :) > Which previous message? Anyway, I think I guessed what you are trying > to say. You can't tell your BIOS to use this device in its own menu? > And if that is true, you don't think the boot(8) code could boot from > it either. Probably true. No, it's as described in the /share/FAQ, I believe 39. The geometry does not get detected properly, to be fixed by putting a DOS partition on the disk. But said disk was, of course, dedicated . > > > Why are you using 'boot -c'? > > But I meant that you complain that you go to sysinstall and then can > only reboot to get back out. Why go into sysinstall at all? > > Well, like I asked the fist time, why are you going into the install > procedure at all? > > Don't use the -c option. I have come to relish the few times that I'm right about things BSD. This looks to be one of those times . I use -c to get UserConfig as stated by Greg on page 194. Indeed boot(8) says so too (good may in fact come from discussions and reading man pages since the -a option above looks promising, will test shortly). What happens without the -c is that I get presented the Kernel Configuration Menu, after which things proceed as described for the -c case. So all skipping -c does is introduce an intermediairy step. > I _believe_ the kern.flp is boot blocks and kernel. mfsroot.flp has > stand/sysinstall and those type of utilities. You can look > at... at... I can't find a kern.flp handy, if you look at loader.conf > or loader.rc, you can see the code that makes it prompt for the > mfsroot.flp. Take that stuff out. I believe those had sizes 0. > Ahh, a "dangerously dedicated" disk. You were warned! ;P Yeah, well, winchester I can remember but the rest.... I blame it on cellular phones. Not that I got any, but for excusing purposes they'll do. > Anyway, I actually want to be able to do this myself. I have a machine > that usually functions as a src tree and ports dist server, but is > also a backup. It ususally boots fine from the BIOS onto the IDE HDDs, > but I am mirroring the machines it backs up on the various dangerously > dedicated SCSI HDDs hanging off of it. It is an ol' 486, so I am 99.9% > sure the BIOS will not like those SCSI drives. I plan on making up > floppies to boot off of each backup should it need to take up the > role. Then if there is a problem when I am not around, anyone can toss > the disk labeled "mail backup" or "firewall backup" into the box and > reboot it as that machine. > > I'll report my results when I find some time to get that working. Please do, since I'm stumped. The "boot -acv" didn't work in that it did not prompt me for a root device. Same old samo. The mfsroot diskette contains but a gzipped mfsroot file of ca. 700K. The kern flop contains more, but nothing that jumps out. The most interesting is ./boot/loader.config and all it does is echo beeps and load -t mfs_root /mfsroot # gee whiz, it already has set root! # small wonder the -a didn't work autoboot 10 and that's it. Unless I'm mistaken it's the autoboot 10 that prompts the prompt I use to abort and execute "set rootdev=disk1s1a:" and "boot -acv". But nothing about why the ./stand/sysinstall should be executed, not why it reboots. I wish thee luck and await thine results with bated breadth! Roelof -- Home is where the (@) http://eboa.com/ is. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message