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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!yoyo.aarnet.edu.au!news.adelaide.edu.au!basser.cs.su.oz.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcom4!ceb From: ceb@netcom4.netcom.com (Ch. Buckley) Subject: Re: Why does FreeBSD only boot from floppy for me? In-Reply-To: eloy@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl's message of Wed, 16 Feb 1994 10:24:45 GMT Message-ID: <CEB.94Feb19052513@netcom4.netcom.com> Sender: ceb@netcom.com (Ch. Buckley) Organization: Mauto, Palo Alto References: <1994Feb16.102445.5901@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 13:25:13 GMT Lines: 60 In article <1994Feb16.102445.5901@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl> eloy@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl (Eloy Domingos) writes: Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions From: eloy@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl (Eloy Domingos) Organization: NIKHEFK Hello, I installed FreeBSD successfully on the SCSI disk, on which there is also another operating system (Linux) consisting of 3 partitions, so the FreeBSD partition is 'DOS' partition 4 starting at 600MB (it is a 1 GB disk). I did something similar, and am having similar problems, but my setup is simpler. I have a big SCSI disk (>1024 cyls) with a teeny DOS partition, and then FreeBSD coming after that. But for me, FreeBSD is a non-DOS partition, according to DOS FDISK. I saw with fdisk that this 4th partition was made active by the installation. However, since I always booted from the IDE drive, there was no MBR present at all on the SCSI disk. I think FreeBSD also didn't install one because I didn't use the whole disk for it. So I did a fdisk/mbr from DOS which installed the standard MBR on the SCSI drive. I made sure the FreeBSD partition was still active, and tried to boot from the SCSI drive (IDE drive still disabled). However, the system prints "Mission operating system" (or something like that) and then halts. It seems like the MBR tries to boot from the FreeBSD partition but it doesn't recognize a valid operating system there, understandable because DOS won't recognize FreeBSD. Same thing with me. The FreeBSD install made the second (non-DOS) partition active, and when I try to boot, I get "missing operating system." When I make the DOS partition active again, it boots just fine to DOS. Do I need a special MBR present to be able to boot? If so, how do I install it? I came to the same conclusion, but I also saw some verbage fly by during the installation question and answer session about how, since it's a big disk, and has more than 1024 cylinders, whether or not it works is case-dependent. It also said something about how "in the worst case FreeBSD must be installed at the beginning of the disk, and existing partitions will be lost." So I was wondering, what if I manage to make the *first* partition a FreeBSD partition, and move the DOS partition after it? If this will work, how would I tell the installation routine that this is what I want? Normally, the installation routine takes the last partition. Thanks in advance, Eloy Likewise, ceb --