Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:16:08 -0800
From:      Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD 6.2 install CD causes immediate reboot
Message-ID:  <45BCE868.7030807@u.washington.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20070128175427.GA39359@owl.midgard.homeip.net>
References:  <302296.98868.qm@web35310.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20070128175427.GA39359@owl.midgard.homeip.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Erik Trulsson wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 09:34:44AM -0800, Andrew Gould wrote:
>> I was given a Dell Dimension m200a yesterday by someone 
>> who recently upgraded.  I think it was created around 1997.
>>
>> CPU:  Pentium
>> RAM: 48MB
>>
>> odd:  This PC runs Win95; but has 2 usb ports.  Didn't 
>> Win98 predate usb ports?
> 
> No, USB ports started appearing around 1996.  It took a while
> before they become widespread though.  The later revisions
> of Win95 did have support for USB, which was improved in Win98.
> 
> 
> 
>> When I try to boot up with the FreeBSD 6.2 installation CD, 
>> the system tries to boot from the CD; but then reboots before 
>> anything messages from the CD appear on the monitor.
>>
>> Is there something I can try, or should I just give up?
>> I have a hard time throwing functional hardware in the trash.
>> Maybe I'm struggling too much with my own mortality; but 
>> that's a different discussion.  ;-)
> 
> You could try booting an older version of FreeBSD (4.x probably since 5.x is
> very similar to 6.x) and see if that works.  You could also
> fiddle with various BIOS settings.  You could also try the boot floppies.
> 
> If none of that works I would give up trying to install FreeBSD on that
> computer.

Try booting the CD without acpi / apm support too. apm support with dell
is fruity, and acpi shouldn't have really been supported all the way
with the machine either.

Moreover, you can try making a boot floppy with the BIOS update as the
current BIOS version may not support Unix installs.

I agree though--if you can't boot freebsd, you should give up. There are
versions of Linux that may run on the laptop though, so you can give
that a shot as well..

Also just for the sake of the archives, Win95 ver. b (basically SP2) did
have USB support but it really sucked; I couldn't the machine to
recognize a number of USB devices with this version of 95. However,
Win98 made a big difference in this arena since they started properly
supporting USB and so that's probably one reason why many people upgraded.

- -Garrett
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.1 (FreeBSD)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFvOhoEnKyINQw/HARAjVxAKCW19E3zOsDLq0TvSgfa+N+W4yxZgCeJapp
ZrmxQ0oXi5R0QoRFIRBI/fA=
=iUTj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?45BCE868.7030807>