Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:29:26 -0800 (PST)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@riley-net170-164.uoregon.edu>
To:        william howell <officeware@gnn.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD installation
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.960125162605.1132B-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199601251925.OAA31200@mail-e1a.gnn.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, william howell wrote:

> I recently purchased a CD copy of FreeBSD from your company. And 
> had some problems installing it that seem to have affected my 
> hardware. I was trying to install directly from CD but couldn't get 
> it to work, so I created a boot floppy usig the IDE CD option from 
> the installation menu. I then rebooted the computer with the floppy 
> and went to the section on partioning the disk from BSD, but before 
> I could do anything the system locked up. I the removed the boot 
> disk and tried to reboot from DOS on the hard drive, nothing 
> happened. It doesn't even go through the initial BISO boot 
> functions. Can't boot from DOS diskette or BSD diskette. Seems tha 
> the attempeted installation has done some damage to my hardware.

A couple of hypotheses:

1)  your CMOS got corrupted somehow.  Might check that your disk(s) are 
still defined correctly.

2)  During the install the partition `active' flag gets reset to the 
FreeBSD partition.  Consequently, if you try to boot normally (with 
FreeBSD on a second disk), you'll get "NO ROM BASIC, SYSTEM HALTED" or 
"Missing Operating System".  In your case, your BIOS has no idea so it 
halts, is my guess.  Try booting with a DOS boot disk and run FDISK and 
reset your DOS partition back to `active'. 

It's unusual that you can't even boot from a floppy. Hm....sounds like 
CMOS corruption to me.  

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




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.91.960125162605.1132B-100000>