*BSD News Article 5334


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!unixg.ubc.ca!kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca!access.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!umrose05
From: umrose05@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dave Rose)
Subject: Re: [386bsd] Strange solution to booting problem
Message-ID: <1992Sep18.165853.7218@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Sender: news@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Nntp-Posting-Host: bova.cc.umanitoba.ca
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
References: <1992Sep17.004545.2065@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu> <19aneaINNkp@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 16:58:53 GMT
Lines: 44

In <19aneaINNkp@agate.berkeley.edu> wjolitz@soda.berkeley.edu (William F. Jolitz) writes:

>Ah ha! This is actually very significant! Good for you (and lady luck).

>Some BIOS use slightly different parameters for the floppy disk controller
>to make it faster -- if this fails, it should fall back on the "less
>efficient" values.

>What I believe happened is this: By inserting the wrong non-bootable
>floppy, a program left by DOS was run (hence, your error message).
>which adjusted the values to "slow" When you immediately followed up 
>with the Tiny 386BSD floppy, it worked.  In other words, you imposed 
>a timing delay in the bootstrap (it must be loading too quickly).  
>Simply trying to boot the floppy over and over could not "readjust" 
>the values.

>Here's a simple test to validate this -- measure the time between the blink
>of the floppy disk light and the keyboard blinks for the failed case and the
>successful case. It should lengthen.

>This is an important find. The bootstrap code will have to be carefully
>reexamined (as usual).

>Lynne Jolitz.
`

As a note, I have a 386-33 ACT motherboard, with AMI bios, and I too was
having major trouble getting it to boot off the Tiny BSD floppy...at
first I hadn't a clue, but I figured it had something to do with my
hard drives...but it did not, but I did stumble across something that
makes my system boot everytime.

When my system first comes up, I press <DEL> to kick me into the cmos
set up area, and then instead of going into the cmos and changing anything,`
I just select the "EXIT FOR BOOT" option, and wam. BSD boots up fine.

If I do not go through this procedure EVERYTIME I boot of the HD or
floppies, my system just blinks the 3 lights on the keyboard and HANGS
HARD...with the A: light on my drive staying on for as long as I let it.

Don't ask me why this works, cause I haven't got a clue, but it works
for me...BTW - I've installed almost every different version of things
to patch this problem, but none of them have worked in my case.