From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 15 08:34:47 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DAAE1065670 for ; Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:34:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bc979@lafn.org) Received: from zoom.lafn.org (zoom.lafn.org [75.101.116.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDEA08FC12 for ; Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:34:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [10.0.1.2] (pool-108-23-64-87.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [108.23.64.87]) (authenticated bits=0) by zoom.lafn.org (8.14.3/8.14.2) with ESMTP id p8F8Yca2082245 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:34:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bc979@lafn.org) From: Doug Hardie Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:34:37 -0700 Message-Id: <5F905B11-01BE-4A01-BAF2-2FFB189F554A@lafn.org> To: FreeBSD Mailing List Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1244.3) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1244.3) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.97 at zoom.lafn.org X-Virus-Status: Clean Subject: Hardware booting problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:34:47 -0000 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.