Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 14:03:31 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: zing@pacificws.com (Christopher Wilkins) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: questions related to getting freeBSD to boot from HD after Message-ID: <199601302103.OAA07290@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <9601291909.AA17220@pulm1.accessone.com> from "Christopher Wilkins" at Jan 29, 96 11:09:59 am
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> 1) Does freeBSD 2.1 support a translating BIOS or do I need to disable that? > I have three EIDE drives, (540 MB, 1.2 GB, 1.2 GB) and want to be able to > run both Windows 95 and freeBSD. I think Windows needs either a translating > BIOS or software to enable it to use the larger hard drives. If freeBSD does > not support a translating BIOS, then I guess I will need to install Western > Digital's ontrack software that comes with their drives. FreeBSD itself doesn't use BIOS. It's a protected mode OS. FreeBSD's second stage boot use BIOS calls to read the kernel and then switched to protected mode to run it. You are limited to locating FreeBSD below BIOS cylinder 1024 (the boot track, disklabel, slice 'a', and replacement sectors, if BAD144 sector sparing is enabled), since the second stage boot must do BIOS-based I/O for all of these things. If you are using OnTrack DiskManager 6.x or 7.x, another boot block based geometry-to-LBA translation TSR, or a card BIOS that hooks INT 13 to make LBA calls, the second stage boot should be able to load from any location on the disk up to 8G. If you aren't using an INT 13 redirector, you are limited to the ISA I/O limit of 500M (16 vs 24 bits). Windows95 will have the same problems unless it is using a protected mode disk driver. Find out by: o Right button down on "My Computer" o Select "Properties" o Click the "Performance" tab of the "System Properties" dialog In the center of the tab, it will either say "Your system is configured for optimal performance" (indicating it is using protect mode disk drivers for all disks), or it will give a (potentially scrolling) list box of non-protected mode (non "32 bit") drivers that are in use. If any drivers are non-protected mode drivers, Windows95 will have the same limitations as FreeBSD regarding big IDE disks. Note: If you have an RZ1000 based IDE controller (about 1/3 of all IDE controllers), you *MUST* turn off 32 bit drivers to avoid silent corruption of your data, unless you can setup, rejumper, or BIOS advanced configuration reset block transfer. You do this by: o In the "Advanced settings" group box of the "Performance" tab, select the "File system..." button. o In the "File System Properties" dialog, click the "Troubleshooting" tab. o Check the "Disable all 32 bit protect-mode disk drivers" box. o OK your way out and OK the "Reboot for changes to take effect". This will mean that you are limited to LBA-base INT 13 redirectors for greater than 500M drives, but at least you won't silently lose data from your Windows95 disk I/O. > 2) Does the freeBSD 2.1 install have a problem with putting the boot manager > on a different disk than the one that I am installing freeBSD onto? I am > trying to install freeBSD onto part of disk E:(1.2 GB). I want to have a 511 > MB DOS partion on it and freeBSD on the rest. If I understand correctly, the > boot manager needs to go on at the beginning of drive C:(540 MB). What do I > need to do to insure that this happens? I have seen a problem with this when the first disk has a disk manager (like Ontrack 6.x or 7.x) in the boot track, but the second disk does not. You should install the boot manager from DOS, not FreeBSD, if this is the case. To be extra careful, you should create then delete a DOS partition from the second drive (after "sys"ing it) so that the OnTrack (or similar) stuff gets to intercept the second disk as well. > 3) Are there any special problems trying to have freeBSD coexist with > Windows 95? Win 95 is already installed. If Win95 is installed second, it will blow away the MBR on the disk so it can change the boot message from "Booting DOS" to "Booting Windows"; if you do this, you will have to reinstall the boot manager by booting windows, downloading/copying from CDROM the boot selector DOS install, and then: o Click the "Start" menu buttom o Select "Shutdown..." o Click the "Restart computer in MS-DOS mode" radio button in the "Shut Down Windows" dialog. o Click "OK". o When the DOS prompt comes up, install the boot manager. This is because Windows95 will prevent you from writing the boot track (this is an anti-virus "feature"). 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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