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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!swidir.switch.ch!swsbe6.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!oleane!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!newsgate.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!dsinc!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!news.drenet.dnd.ca!crc-news.doc.ca!nott!nntp.igs.net!usenet From: cskinner@bml.ca (Chris K. Skinner) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: First Attempt to Install FreeBSD - Discouraging Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 03:19:10 GMT Organization: Bytown Marine Limited, Nepean/Kanata, Ont, Canada Lines: 111 Message-ID: <4qag4e$789@nntp.igs.net> References: <3188C1E2.45AE@onramp.net> <4n7mp1$217@jraynard.demon.co.uk> <4n8jin$htl@agate.berkeley.edu> <319BD8E3.10D67C49@lambert.org> <4ngunq$oeu@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ttyb19.ott.igs.net Hi. I came across an archive of your article in Deja News. My question was going to be, "Is it possible to setup the FreeBSD boot loader to go to start any arbitrary IDE boot disk partition?" I've just installed Linux to /dev/hdd1. This is IDE hard disk 4: /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc, and /dev/hdd are my 4 disk devices. My CD-Rom hangs off of an AHA1542C SCSI controller. A few days ago I discovered that it is possible to have a few more IDE controller ports: the SB-32 PnP when the PnP software config program runs can detect the existing 0x1f0 primary, and the 0x170 secondary IDE controllers and so installs the IDE disk controller of the PnP SB-32 to a third spot at 0x168. Instructions in the booklet indicate that a master and slave disk can also be attached to the SB-32 IDE controller port. Now that I've got Dos/Win3.1, FreeBSD, and Linux scattered on 4 drives, it might be conceivable that I buy an SB-32 with an 8x or 10x CD-Rom and another EIDE hard disk with another OS on it, say WinNT Server (which I've got, but haven't had a chance to try out). Because of the AHA1542C SCSI controller, I could conceivably add a bunch of SCSI hard disks as well. If the OS boot routines for each OS was suitably flexible, then I could select among a big menu of OSs to fire up at boot time, but by the descriptions on your cited and linked web pages, it looks like FreeBSD boot loader cannot as written do the dreamed scenario. Any keener hackers out there listening? Some dual wide SCSI controllers can control 14 devices (maybe each with sub LUNs)... The number of attached drives is likely to increase as companies discard some of their older and slower and lower capacity IDE or SCSI disks. A scrounger might add a pile of drives to his/her system. It would be great to be able to boot from any boot device. More possibilities... A half month ago, I heard of some motherboard Bios that can boot from CD Rom! Any far-seeing programmers with itchy programming fingers could start researching into some of these boot device alternatives. Is there any way to re-arrange the Bios mapping of block device numbers 0x80, 0x81, 0x82 and so on in order to trick the boot process into thinking it was on the primary controller and on the master disk drive of that controller--this way OSs that can't usually boot off of other drives might be fooled into booting properly? Thanks for reading. Regards, Chris K. Skinner. >Subject: Re: First Attempt to Install FreeBSD - Discouraging >From: "Scott Storkel" <sstorkel@actioneer.com> >Date: 1996/05/15 >Message-Id: <4ndon5$4f6@114.69> >Nntp-News-Admin: newsadmin@114.69 >References: <Dr1FK7.FLH@avenger.daytonoh.attgis.com> <318FC4BF.3BE82C72@lambert.org> >Organization: Actioneer, Inc. >Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc >In article <318FC4BF.3BE82C72@lambert.org>, Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote: > >>] Is FreeBSD supposed to be this hard to install? At least this ought >>] to keep the amateurs from playing with it. >> >>With respect, ametuers rarely have two disks in their system; >>certainly to have more than one IDE drive and an IDE CDROM >>drive takes two controllers (IDE is limited to two devices). >> >>The installation notes cover this clearly, but it's obvious that >>you chose to install on a second drive, and then, in violation >>of the installation notes advice, installed a boot record of >>some kind, knowing that it would be installed on the wrong (first) >>drive, like the installation notes warn will happen. > >Huh? Where? > >I ran into this same problem while installing FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE >from the Walnut Creek CD-ROM. I read **ALL** of the documentation >I could find and didn't see these problems documented anywhere! > >Since you seem to be well informed, can you tell me where I should >look for information like this? > >BTW, I worked around these problems by modifying the FreeBSD >boot blocks. Check out: > > http://www.devious.com/freebsd > >for my instructions on how to boot FreeBSD using the Windows NT >boot loader. > >>In any case, it's quite annoying to see a post complaining about >>the install process without you presenting enough information >>such that someone with more time and patience than Moses could >>walk you through the process clearly documented in the release >>materials, and get your non-standard hadrware configuration >>running. > >Funny, I knew *exactly* what the guy was talking about. Unfortunately, >I don't have the time to read this group as regularly as I'd like... > > >-- Scott > >============================================================================== >Scott Storkel 539 Bryant Street, Ste. 402 >Software Engineer San Francisco, CA. 94107 >Actioneer, Inc. 415-882-4372 (FAX) >==============================================================================