Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoknor.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!newshub.nosc.mil!news!passion.nosc.mil!lima From: lima@io.nosc.mil (jd lima) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Cannot mount root during install? Date: 14 May 1995 17:15:47 GMT Organization: NRaD, San Diego Lines: 84 Message-ID: <3p5ds3$rc1@passion.nosc.mil> References: <3o4lp2$b2i@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <3orbtt$su9@passion.nosc.mil> <3ottl6$l7@park.uvsc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: io.nosc.mil X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Terry Lambert (terry@cs.weber.edu) wrote: : lima <lima> wrote: : ] tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) wrote: : ] >I'm having some problems trying to install FreeBSD 2.0. I'm trying to : ] >install on my second IDE drive. I'm deviating slightly from the : [ ... ] : ] I had *exactly* the same problem. The only thing I can think of now is : ] that perhaps FreeBSD "will install perfectly fine on a second drive" as : ] long as it's a SCSI drive -- unfortunately I have two IDE drives: : One major point: Have you both tried the most recent snap? It's : impossible to magically make fixed bits appear on a CDROM. Even : if Jordan had a laser and your missle coordinates, I think : atmospheric distortion would foil him (Jordan can't afford to buy : adaptive optics). Ok, Terry. I'll try the latest SNAP -- thanks for all the really GOOD observations you made. I have gone over the events leading to my latest problem, and I'm no longer sure that even the latest SNAP will have any effect: [snip] : ] - bought a *new* VLB I/O Controller. This one has on-board BIOS, and : ] allows driver-less access to >528MB drives. I thought, "this is just : ] what I need." NOW, DOS fdisk sees both drives in their entirety : ] just fine. This is the crucial point. what I now recall happened was that I tried to just proceed with the BSD installation off the second drive. Up to this point I had the installation going to my second drive, than it had that problem with finding the root partition. I switched I/O cards, rebooted, and NOW THAT I RECALL, I had the simple boot manager ON BOTH drives, so I saw something like this at bootup: F1 dos F3 FreeBSD F5 disk2 Now I had made that FreeBSD partition on the 1st drive (after cylinder 1024) intending to use it as '/extra' or something, so I chose F5, which led to the following: F1 dos F3 FreeBSD F5 disk1 Choosing F3 resulted in my second hard drive SPINNING DOWN. That's right, it actually shutdown as soon as I hit F3. I had to reboot my machine, and EVER SINCE, MY FREEBSD BOOT FLOPPY will not boot, like I described before: : ] just fine. BUT...FreeBSD boot floppy will not even proceed with the : ] kernel startup -- it just goes right into a system reboot immediatly : ] upon system probe sequence. I only see that '|' -> '/' -> '-' thing : ] change once or twice, then...reboot. I confirmed that I see '|', '/', '-', then bam! reboot. I replace new I/O card with old -- same prob. I booted *another* pc with the floppy, and it works as it always did before (correctly). I tried to boot from and older NetBSD 1.0 boot floppy which used to work -- it does the same reboot thing pretty much identically. Other things that I tried that didn't work: - *entirely* reformatted EVERYTHING (both drives, repartitioned...) - pulled *every* card out of my machine except video and I/O cards. - disconnected every (external) cable from my machine except power and video. - made each drive the *only* drive, each in turn. - used DOS 'fdisk /mbr' to wipe boot manager of both drives. - installed OS-BS (provided on FBSD2.0 CD-ROM) on 1st drive only. I can't think of what else to do -- except try the latest SNAP, and right now I don't think that's going to do much, but what else can I try?. I can use my system just fine -- as long as it has nothing to do with BSD. What's going on here? : I can't speak for the exact failure of FreeBSD 2.0; like I said, : it isn't current, and it's not something for which there would be : a workaround without replacing your boot disks. -- John D. Lima lima@nosc.mil -- with standard disclaimers, etc.