*BSD News Article 83112


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From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Strange boot problem on install
Date: 18 Nov 1996 05:04:03 GMT
Organization: Symantec Corp.
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <56oqo3$pak@Symiserver2.symantec.com>
References: <328C9B93.B57@sonic.net>
Reply-To: tedm@agora.rdrop.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: shiva2.central.com
X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2.5

In <328C9B93.B57@sonic.net>, "Eric J. Rossin" <ejr@sonic.net> writes:
>Hi all!

[deleted]

>well anyway, we did an install (from CD); everything went fine. Then,
>when I re-boot from disk, the same thing happens! I had to explicitly
>enter "wd(1,a)kernel" (we had installed on the second drive), and it
>worked. Simply hitting return, or letting it default results in a
>re-start of the computer.

The IBM PC BIOS by default boots from drive 0, ie. drive C:, ie. the first
drive in the chain.  This is not changeable unless you have a fancy BIOS.

Apparently, the freeBSD bootstrap install was writtin to drive 0, and of
course, the bootstrap expects to transfer control to the operating system
on the default boot drive 0.  Since you have the OS installed on the second
drive in the system, drive 1, the FreeBSD boot loader executing off of drive 0
looks at drive 0, sees that there isin't a valid Unix filesystem on it, and 
immediately reboots.

I believe there is a setting to change in the bootstrap program installed on
drive 0 that makes it boot the OS from whatever drive you want, you will have
to dig this out.

The reason they do this is because if the machine reboots and sees a
filesystem that is too screwed up to even boot they don't want you to try
loading the possibly damaged kernel off of it and scribbling all over your
filesystem.