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Date:      Fri, 26 Jun 1998 11:22:45 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Ian Kallen <ian@gamespot.com>
To:        Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
Cc:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-sf@arachna.com, abial@nask.pl
Subject:   FIXED: Re: I'm burning... 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980626095743.24821B-100000@mail.gamespot.com>
In-Reply-To: <199806260335.UAA06242@antipodes.cdrom.com>

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Hi Mike and asordid lists,
I had to ditch the server installation (started over with a 2940 and 2.2.6
just to fulfill the "get another server up" demands....) but I built a
hodge podge scratch machine (I love building machines from spare parts :)
to start anew with that 3940 card. Sorry if my description of the error
was incomplete; there may have been a "(2)" at the end... it definitely
started with "error 6" though.  If this new installation attempt I'm in
the midst of reproduces that, I'll look at the disklabel.  This is not an
over-install but a full scratch installation with the disk "dangerously
dedicated" (yea, I like living "dangerously" sheesh! ;)  If the disklabel
comes up saying ESDI, then I guess the culprit is <abial>'s boot disk (?);
I'm just doing my usual sysinstall thing with no boot manager or
cooperation with other OS', just full-on type-165-disk-dedication.  I need
to get a recipe together for building servers with multi-channel
controllers; the content I'm supporting doesn't stop growing thus the
appetite for disks has no limit. 

(walked away from my console to do the aforementioned install)

30 minutes later, I've completed the install.  The problem was the friggen
disklabel.  Just to humor y'all then I've rewritten <abial>'s
instructions:

<PRE>
Boot floppies with new CAM SCSI code (support for the new AIC7895).

Archive contents
----------------
README          this file
boot.flp        sysinstall floppy
kernel.flp      special floppy, containing the right kernel and some utils

Install procedure
-----------------

The boot.flp contains usual stuff with built-in CAM code.

You do the usual thing with it, i.e. write it onto a 1.44 diskette and
boot it. The first SCSI disk will be called "da0".

Then you install the whole system. Unfortunately, at this moment what gets
installed is GENERIC kernel, with old SCSI code, which doesn't support
AIC7895. The second floppy image (kernel.flp) contains the same version of
GENERIC kernel which was used to do the installation (minus MFS/sysinstall
thing).

Here's how I used it: after installation completed, just before rebooting
I chose the "Fixit" option, then "Fixit floppy". Sysinstall mounts the
kernel.flp.  Below is a procedure explicitly laid out that assumes your
first hard drive has /var on /dev/da0s1e and /usr on /dev/da0s1f.  Using
cp, chflags, chown etc. (included) I copy the kernel from it onto the root
partition overwriting freshly installed GENERIC kernel.  Then reboot and
it should come up. If not, ask yourself why, and then, if nothing comes to
your mind, ask &lt;abial@nask.pl&gt; :-) Good luck!

Hit alt-f4 to go to the Fixit shell and do this:
PATH=/mnt2:/stand:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin ; export PATH
mount /dev/da0a /mnt
mount /dev/da0e /mnt/var
mount /dev/da0f /usr
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi ; export EDITOR
/mnt/sbin/disklabel -e -r da0
(change ESDI to SCSI!)
gunzip < kernel.CAM.gz > /mnt/kernel
chflags schg /mnt/kernel
gunzip < kvm_kernel.CAM.db.gz > /mnt/var/db/kvm_kernel.db
umount /usr
umount /mnt/var
umount /mnt
exit

Back your way out of sysinstall and reboot; do a "-c" at the boot prompt
to turn off probing of the stupid ISA devices you're not using anyway.
Rejoice.

Andrzej Bialecki
&lt;abial@nask.pl&gt;
</PRE>

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Mike Smith wrote:
:> da0: 4095Mb (normal looking disk recognition stuff)
:> error 6: panic: cannot mount root
:
:I can't actually see how you can get error 6 out of that case; are you 
:sure that the panic wasn't "can't mount root (2)"?
:
:This looks like it's due to the disk type in the disklabel on your disk 
:being wrong.  Are you preserving a disk layout from a previous 
:installation, or redoing it from scratch?
:
:There's a dangerous error in a number of cases where the disklabel on a 
:SCSI disk can be set to ESDI (meaning IDE).  We depend on the label 
:being correct in order to select the right driver type to access the 
:disk.  (I could go on about this for hours; it is a major point of 
:grief for anyone trying to improve the way that FreeBSD works out where 
:it was booted from...)

Thanks to Mike Smith and the others on the various lists for pointing me
towards the disklabel.  Now I have a scratch machine with 3.0-980520-SNAP
on it and need to patch my sources to be CAM aware, hmmm... see ya!

Peace,
-Ian

--
A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without
breathing.
		-- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4



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