*BSD News Article 51879


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.crl.com!news.fibr.net!usenet
From: Rob Snow <rsnow@txdirect.net>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Boot problems with Promise EIDE controller
Date: 29 Sep 1995 09:47:19 GMT
Organization: G3 Research, Inc.
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <44gfb7$54j@nimitz.fibr.net>
References: <446m0u$m15@fsgm01.fnal.gov> <449g5d$kg1@interport.net> <44fulq$i4k@interport.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: oasis.txdirect.net
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (X11; I; BSD/386 uname failed)
X-URL: news:44fulq$i4k@interport.net

deng@interport.net (Daniel Eng) wrote:
>Daniel Eng (deng@interport.net) wrote:
>: Marc Mengel (mengel@fsgm01.fnal.gov) wrote:
>: : Recently I bought a Samsung 1.1G EIDE drive, and a Promise EIDE-MAX
>: : "controller", which has a Promise ROM for boot code, etc. for EIDE.
>: : The FreeBSD first stage boot loaders (floppy or hard drive) don't work
>: : with this ROM in the system. 
>
>: : At all.
>
>: : The FreeBSD banner message doesn't even come up.
>
>: : I tried FreeBSD 1.0, 2.0, and 2.05 boot floppies, none of them would
>: : bring up the bootstrap loader.
>
>: : On the other hand a NetBSD boot floppy boot loader comes up; and if
>: : you boot off of it to the "boot:" prompt, swap floppies to the FreeBSD 2.05
>: : floppy, and then boot "fd(0,a)/kernel", it comes right up, lets you install,
>: : etc.  So it's not a kernel problem; it's just the first stage boot that
>: : breaks with these ROMs in the system.
>
>: : If I pull the controller and put my trusty old ESDI controller back in
>: : the system, they all boot just fine. 
>
>: : DOS boots regardless.
>
>: I have the same problem with a Promise 2300+ card.  Installation seems to
>: work fine, but the operating system would never come up.  I'm not sure how
>: the UNIX drivers that came with the card would work.  It would be a shame
>: not to have to revert back to the IDE controller on the motherboard.  I hope
>: someone comes up with the solution soon, otherwise, I will have to switch
>: back to Linux.
>
>I sent a message to Promise and they got back to me within one day!  They
>suggested disabling the BIOS on the card and now everything works fine.  I
>am able to boot in FreeBSD.
>
>Maybe the FreeBSD kernel is checking for the ROM address for the IDE
>controller in a different location.
>
>Dan
>-- 
>Daniel Eng  *  deng@interport.net  *  http://www.interport.net/~deng  *
> [Certified OS/2 Engineer]     | There are two things in life that are eternal:
> [Team OS/2]                   |      God's word and people.
> [Gateway Users International] | Invest in those things that are eternal...

Disabling the BIOS is the only way I've gotten my machine to boot.  
Also, I was jacking around last month and tried enabling the BIOS 
to see what would happen.  BAD THINGS, as in: No more partition table.

Since then I've left well enough alone.

Oh, during the jacking around found that my 2300+ runs fine with a 
50MHz VL-Bus.  (as does my Stealth 64 VRAM)

______________________________________________________________________
Rob Snow                                            Powered by FreeBSD
rsnow@txdirect.net                              http://www.freebsd.org