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From: phil@rivendell.apana.org.au (Phil Homewood)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: FreeBSD-2.0R boot kernel question
Date: 29 Nov 1994 20:45:09 +1000
Organization: Rivendell - APANA Brisbane
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <3bf0nl$e68@rivendell.apana.org.au>
References: <1994Nov25.173906.29357@sandia.gov> <3b8fhl$mg@news-rocq.inria.fr>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rivendell.apana.org.au
X-Comment-To: Herve Soulard
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Herve Soulard (soulard@alix.inria.fr) wrote:
: Alan F Lundin (aflundi@sandia.gov) wrote:
: : The first several times I tried to boot the boot floppy,
: : it failed as the kernel tried to switch to the floppy
: : device as root. After doing a hardware reset, it did
: : make the switch OK and I went through the boot installation.
: : When I boot now from the hard disk, everything goes fine until
: : it asks for the cpio floppy, but is unable to read it.
: : The debug screen just says "gunzip input/output error".
: : There is a message on the install screen, but it goes away
: : far too fast to read, that looks like a fd driver debug line.
: : The floppy then becomes unavailable in any fashion until
: : I do a hardware reset, at which time the controller recognises
: : it again. I'm using a Bt445S SCSI controller and the
: I had the same problem. The kernel boots fine until it wants to
: changing the root device to fd0c. There were a message from the floppy
: device. When I reboot (with the reste button) the floppy is totally
: blocked. I need to switch off.
We (myself and Ernie Elu, ernie@tinny.apana.org.au) found the same
problem installing from a 1.44MB drive. After disassembling the drive
to observe it, we worked out _why_.
Our Theory:
After the kernel loads into RAM, the drive heads seek back to track 0.
The fd0 autoprobe sends a signal which _should_ be 'seek back to track
0' to the drive for some reason; however the drive decides to seek
back _past_ track 0. It jams up and stops, and needs a reset to fix
it.
: I've found a solution by using my second floppy drive (1.2) as drive A
: instead of the 1.44 floppy. This way I was able to install the kernel on
: my hard drive.
Our Solution:
Jam a business card folded in half between the head and the case of
the drive. The second seek will not move the head as the card is in
the way, thus preventing the head from going back to woop-woop.
[Hm, maybe I should cross-post this to alt.hackers? :]
Worked for us; YMMV. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they fully
understood what they were doing :)
Obviously, this is a kluge, and one which needs fixing. Once I install
2.0R myself, I'll probably look into it.
: : Also, whenever I do an <ESC><ESC> from either the boot
: : floppy install, or from the 2nd phase install (sysinstall?),
: : it reboots the machine. Do I not undersand something
: : fundamental here?
Possibly :) the install blurb says that it will abort the installation
if you hit escape twice. Sounds like it's working to me!!
Phil.
--
Phil Homewood phil@rivendell.apana.org.au
APANA Brisbane Regional Co-Ordinator brisbane@apana.org.au
"Baby, baby, it's my turn to cry"