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Date:      Wed, 1 May 1996 11:25:47 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@riley-net170-164.uoregon.edu>
To:        "Craig A. Heilman" <craigh@bugsoft.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Q: Install prob. w/ 1 IDE & 1 SCSI drive
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.960501112207.10061K-100000@riley-net170-164.uoregon.edu>
In-Reply-To: <v02130501adaab7e0e57b@[205.213.64.30]>

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On Mon, 29 Apr 1996, Craig A. Heilman wrote:

> I finally jumped in and tried to install FreeBSD 2.1 on my system last
> night.  The install seemed to go fine but now I can't boot DOS or FreeBSD
> except from a DOS or FreeBSD boot floppy (ie. the hard drives are somewhat
> "broken").  I'm not sure how much system info is needed so I will probably
> give more than is needed...
[...]

> When I rebooted after the install, I see the following in succession:
> 
> - Award BIOS startup message (normal)
> - Adaptec BIOS loaded / SCSI devices found message (normal)
> - System Configuration screen (normal)
> - blank screen with "PRESS A KEY TO REBOOT" in upper left hand corner (most
> definately NOT normal)

You need to use DOS FDISK and reset the 'active' partition.

> I reboot with the FreeBSD boot floppy and type "sd(0,a)/kernel" and
> variations on that to try and boot off the SCSI drive.  I get a message
> like "1049 > 1023 cylinders" (don't remember exact wording).  Hmmm, I seem
> to remember that it can't boot if root partition is higher than 500MB limit
> of DOS BIOS.

That is correct.

> (3) I assumed that if I installed BootEasy on wd0, then I would initially
> boot off wd0 where BootEasy would take over, give me a choice of OS, then
> boot FreeBSD no matter where it lives! (ie. above the 500MB BIOS limit).
> Is this an incorrect assumption?  Will BootEasy work for my situation and
> which drive should it go on?

BootEasy must go on the first disk, and it does not overcome the DOS 
BIOS limitation.  

> I reboot with a DOS floppy and check my C: drive  - files are still there
> (whew!).  I think that maybe I somehow waxed the MBR on my IDE drive.  I
> try to run DOS's FDISK but it just dies with a "divide by 0" error.  I even
> copy FDISK to the boot floppy but still get the same error.  Why?

Don't know.

Are you running a disk translator?

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major




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