*BSD News Article 81718


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: when does boot say "panic cannot mount root"
Date: 28 Oct 1996 08:43:02 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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References: <32710A83.167EB0E7@gsfc.nasa.gov> <54vai5$okg@uriah.heep.sax.de>
  <3273D564.2781E494@gsfc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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Andrew Szymkowiak <andrew.szymkowiak@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

> It turns out one should say
> 
> wd(1,a)/kernel

correct
> 
> and things work fine now.  Some day I will have to try
> 
> 1:wd(1,0)/kernel.

That's the same.  As long as the bootstrap can find out about the
device minor number (for BSD) from the DOS device number (as in this
case), you don't need the ``1:'' override.  The bootstrap usually
fails for weird combinations like mixed IDE/SCSI drives.  This is
obvious if you think about it: in a mixed IDE/SCSI environment, the
BIOS device ordering e.g. depends on whether you have announced your
IDE drive to the BIOS (in which case it's getting the first drive
numbers) or not (in which case the SCSI BIOS might allocate the first
drive numbers).  For FreeBSD, it's still wd0, wd1, sd0, sd1, etc.
Only the mapping between BSD devices and BIOS devices changes.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)