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Date:      Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:13:23 -0700 (MST)
From:      Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
To:        davidg@root.com
Cc:        cpallone@nancy.compusa.com, questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Panic: Cannot mount ROOT
Message-ID:  <199511282013.NAA21932@phaeton.artisoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <199511272109.NAA00158@corbin.Root.COM> from "David Greenman" at Nov 27, 95 01:09:33 pm

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>    The "cannot mount root" panic usually happens when the system can't find
> your disk control and/or drive with '/' on it. What kind of SCSI disk
> controller are you using, and did FreeBSD find it at startup?

Personally, I only see it when the C/H/S value in the partition table,
when multiplied by an incorrect geometry, doesn't give the correct
absolute sector for the partition start.

This used to happen when the BIOS geometry translation was incorrect.

Now it happens when the BIOS geometry is forced to the Adaptec "standard"
translation on older hardware, on non-linear BIOS_based trnslation (like
WD1007 sector sparing), and so on.

I'm not quire sure about the code with regard to a "boot-from-floppy,
install onto an OnTrack 6.x using EIDE disk"; I don't own any IDE
disks because I like my machines to work without hassles.  But from
the logic, I suspect that an installation of a boot manager at install
time from a floppy install might toast things nicely as well.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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