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Date:      Mon, 30 Mar 1998 09:23:33 -0600 (CST)
From:      "Roger P. Johnson" <rpj@fep.hirshfields.com>
To:        andre.albsmeier@mchp.siemens.de (Andre Albsmeier)
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: "Read error" on bootup.......
Message-ID:  <199803301523.JAA23020@fep.hirshfields.com>
In-Reply-To: <199803291748.TAA28591@intern> from Andre Albsmeier at "Mar 29, 98 07:48:36 pm"

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Heh.  You're not the only one with this problem. After 6 months of battling
this problem off and on, here's what I have found as your only solution.

I have to assume you are trying to dedicate the whole drive to FBSD like
I was.

It has something to do with the BIOS (and/drive ?). The only way to get your
"beast" to boot up naturally, is to install a DOS partition on your drive.
Do this so when you get into the FBSD fdisk editor, you can record the
geometry reported. This is the geometry to use for your disk. While in the
fdisk partion editor, zap that DOS partion outta there, and say you want
the whole disk used for FBSD, remaining cooperative with other OS's.  If you
choose to dedicate the whole drive to FBSD w/o being cooperative, you will
get the "Read error" message again. 

If you don't have a DOS disk, try this for the geometry: Mbtyes/64/32.
ie. 1010/64/32 for a 1.1 GB disk; even though the FAQ recommended
that I use 128/63/255. fdisk didn't like this! It was recommending
that I use 128/255/63, and I'd still get "Read error". Ugh.

I say it is a BIOS/HD problem because given the EXACT same machine,
controller, RAM etc, if I install a 1GB SCSI HD I get the "Read error".
If I put a 2GB SCSI HD in, I can dedicate the whole drive to FBSD and
get this -- IT WORKS!  Go figure.

Good Luck, ya gotta have the standard fdisk setup in this case :(

Roger

> > Greetings............
> > 
> > I've just installed FreeBSD 3.0 on a machine with 2 Pro's and 256 MB
> > ram, on a SCSI disk. When attemping to boot, I simply receive the
> > following error:
> > 
> > Read error
> > 
> > That's it. If I put the 3.0 boot floppy into the drive, I can send the
> > boot options to be:
> > 
> > 0:sd(0,a)kernel
> > 
> > And all is well, I can boot up with no problems. However, I'd like to
> > be able to boot off the harddisk (The partiton is active) without any
> > user intervention. Could anyone tell me why this is happening, and
> > possibly on how to fix it?
> 
> I had this on a Siemens machine (Phoenix BIOS). When installing 2.2.5
> in the "not dangerously dedicated mode (or how is it called)" the
> problem went away. All other (non Siemens machines) machines work great.
> 
> 	-Andre
> 
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