*BSD News Article 38393


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From: gillham@andrews.edu (Andrew Gillham)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Boot floppy error on 2.88 drive
Date: 22 Nov 1994 17:13:53 GMT
Organization: Andrews University
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <3at8sh$7a8@orion.cc.andrews.edu>
References: <3at3t1$8n0@necco.harvard.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: edmund.cs.andrews.edu

In article <3at3t1$8n0@necco.harvard.edu> aelia@endor.harvard.edu (Al Elia) writes:
>
>I'm trying to install FreeBSD 1.1.5.1 on my IBM ThinkPad 750c, but
>everytime I boot the kernel floppy, I get a sevtor read error on 0:0:10

This is a problem with the boot sector, if you have access to a working
system with source, you can hardcode the floppy type in the boot code
to a 1.44MB drive, then you can boot the kernel.

>anyone know how to fix this? I tried creating the install floppy on the
>2.88 drive, but that didn't work either...

If you format a diskette to 2.88 and use something like norton's
diskedit to write out the first 20k or so of your boot floppy image to
this disk, you can then boot it.  Once at the boot prompt, switch the
disk to the 1.44MB boot floppy.  Note that rawrite doesn't work, as it
doesn't understand 36 sector floppies either.

>The bus for the system is (according to diags) AT, not MCA, so I really
>don't see what the problem is if it's not the 2.88 drive.

Nope, not a bus problem, as I've booted FreeBSD and NetBSD on my 750C.
FreeBSD 1.1.5.1 doesn't probe the floppy drive correctly so even when
you you get the kernel booted, it dies because it can't mount the root
filesystem.  NetBSD probes the floppy drive as a 1.44, and installs
correctly, but has no PCMCIA support.
I am in the process of installing NetBSD 1.0 now... 
I'm going to be trying FreeBSD 2.0 RSN.

-Andrew
-- 
==========================================================
Andrew Gillham                       gillham@andrews.edu
LAN/WAN/Netware/Unix Analyst         gillham@whirlpool.com
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