From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 25 16:32:25 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id QAA21222 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:32:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (riley-net170-164.uoregon.edu [128.223.170.164]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA21217 for ; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:32:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (from dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA01151; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:29:26 -0800 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:29:26 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White Reply-To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu To: william howell cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD installation In-Reply-To: <199601251925.OAA31200@mail-e1a.gnn.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk 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