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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!spool.mu.edu!decwrl!rtech!amdahl!JUTS!jdg00 From: jdg00@ccc.amdahl.com (Josh Grosse) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Ack! Ick! Ook! Argh! Message-ID: <fcpA02Mq3aKZ01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> Date: 17 Mar 93 22:08:21 GMT Reply-To: joshua.grosse@amail.amdahl.com (Josh Grosse) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 42 I'm a Linux user switching to 386BSD to do some beta testing of a future XFree release. I have a terrible problem with TinyBSD; perhaps someone here can put me on the right road. SYMPTOM: TinyBSD installs just fine when using the entire disk. Installing in a partition (partition #2, behind MS-DOS) seems to go just fine. The install program formats the partition, builds a filesystem, mounts the partition, installs the complete TinyBSD package onto the hard-drive. Then booting from the hard drive causes a "cannot find label" panic/reboot loop. The exact same problem occurs with both the "official" 7/92 TinyBSD, and with the 1/93 "unofficial" TinyBSD from the patch-kit at agate. Using disklabel from the fixit diskette, I am able to determine that a label sort-of-exists using "disklabel -r /dev/rwd0", with plenty of incorrect entries. The entries seemed just fine with the entire-disk instead of the partitioned method. My disk is a PC/AT "Type 37" 120MB drive. Looking at the label under "entire-disk" format, I see that it's an ESDI/IDE drive. It has 3 "partitions" defined, the first is a 4.2BSD, the others are unused. And, it boots fine. Looking at the label when I'm running partitioned, I see that the number of cylinders is incorrect, rpm and interleave are 0, and there is one partition unused. I've looked at the FAQ and the BUGS at agate, and it appears that as I've got an IDE drive, there MAY be various problems. I've not seen anything that says those problems go away if you let 386BSD have the whole disk. Unfortunately, I still need my MS-DOS system, and I don't look forward to several hours of backups and restores to switch between operating systems. Would some kind and knowledgeable person please point me in the right direction? Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Grosse jdg00@amail.amdahl.com Amdahl Corp. 313-358-4440 Southfield, Michigan