Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:34:37 -0700 From: Doug Hardie <bc979@lafn.org> To: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Hardware booting problem Message-ID: <5F905B11-01BE-4A01-BAF2-2FFB189F554A@lafn.org>
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I encountered a situation today that I do not understand. This is a = very old i386 PC that does not have a usable CD drive. The existing = drive uses a very funky SCSI connector that I have nothing for. The = system disk is SCSI and there was one additional PATA drive used for = additional storage. The PATA drive failed. It won't even stick around = in /dev for more than a couple minutes after boot and there are lots of = messages about bad sectors. The data is completely backed up and the = that drive is over 5 years old. I removed the old drive and installed a new one. System will not boot. = It hangs in the BIOS. Never gets around to installing the SCSI BIOS. = My first guess was there was no boot sector on the SCSI drive. That = seems unusual since my other systems boot off the SCSI drives just fine. = This one used to also before I added the PATA drive. However, if I put = the dead drive back in along with the new one, then it boots. This also = implies that the boot sector was only on the PATA drive. But the PATA = drive is for all intents and purposes dead. So how is it booting? Is = there any way to look into the SCSI drive and see if there is a boot = sector there? This is more a curiosity item as there are additional failures starting = to occur in that computer. We are going to replace it. Its around 10 = years old.
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