Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 17:35:00 +0200 From: Ewald Jenisch <a@jenisch.at> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Asus P3B-F MoBo -> Invalid partition table (5.x, 6.x) Message-ID: <20060403153500.GA1317@aurora.oekb.co.at>
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Hi, I ran into an interesting problem installing FreeBSD on the following hardware: MoBo: Asus P3B-F, latest BIOS CPU: PIII, 500MHz HD: Maxtor 90871U2 (9GB) = primary IDE master CD: Sony CDU 4811 = secondary IDE master 256MB RAM Boot Sequence: Floppy, CD, HD FreeBSD is to be installed into two slices on the HD - one slice for everything except /home, the other one for /home. The problem: When installing FreeBSD (doesn't matter 5.x or 6.x) the PC can't be booted off the HD after installation. When trying to boot I get an error message saying "invalid partition table". Digging further into the problem I've found out a workaround: When I change the BIOS-parameters for the HD to "User Defined Harddisk" and "LBA" booting is possible. Even more: during initial installation of FreeBSD it doesn't matter if the setting for the HD in the BIOS is Auto or User-defined/LBA - however when trying to boot off the HD this setting does very well matter. To cross-check I've installed FreeBSD with a HD-setting of Auto, then changed the BIOS to User-defined/LBA and was able to boot the PC from the HD. Please note that this happens with both 5.4, 6.0 and 6.1-Beta4. When checking the BIOS-settings I found out that Auto and User-defined/LBA show different values: Auto-setting: (PC cannot boot from HD with these settings) Cylinders 1024 Heads 16 Sectors 63 CHS capacity 528MB Maximum LBA Capacity 8700MB User-defined HD / LBA: (PC can boot from HD) Cylinders 1024 Heads 255 Sectors 63 CHS capacity 8422M Maximum LBA Capacity 8700MB Here are my questions: o) Has anybody else experienced this behavior - possibly also on a PC with Asus P3B-F motherboard? o) Why does this happen? (I suppose something weird with HD-geometry, i.e. the BIOS not reflecting the correct HD-parameters) o) Is there a way to boot with the HD-parameters in the BIOS left to default (Auto)? Thanks much in advance for your help, -ewald
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