*BSD News Article 2866


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From: barnesdo@CS.ColoState.EDU (douglas barnes)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: One booting success, one failure
Message-ID: <Jul31.001629.32070@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 31 Jul 92 00:16:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: yuma.Jul31.001629.32070
Sender: news@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (News Account)
Organization: Colorado State University, Computer Science Department
Lines: 40

A booting success and a failure (tried three different boot diskettes
on two different systems, all worked on one, none worked on the other).

Diskettes used:
   dist.fs (Jollitz .1.24), dist.fs, (cgd) fixit.fs (cgd)

Symptoms: 
   Copyright notice appears, disk access light stays on, cursor blinks,
   nothing else ever happens. I think I have seen a similar problem on
   this group but not the solution. Tried all three diskettes, disabled or
   disconnected all optional hardware, disabled various CMOS settings.
   All three diskettes had exact same problem. 

Failed to boot on:
   486/33mhz OPTI-486WB with 8MB RAM
   OPTI chipset, AMI BIOS (6/6/91)
   "Groundhog Graphics" ET4000 SVGA card
   Quantum 234mb IDE drive
   1.2mb and 1.44mb drives (1.2mb is boot)
   All serial and parallel cards removed after initial failure
   All "shadow" options disabled in CMOS after initial failure
   All caches disabled in CMOS after initial failure
   Speed reduced to "16mhz" after additional failures

Same diskettes booted just fine on:
   386/25mhz no-name board with 4mb RAM (so Taiwanese the "manual" is
      in Chinese...)
   OPTI chipset, AMI BIOS (ca. 1989)
   "Tronics" ET3000 
   Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter
   Quantum 120mb SCSI drive 
   generic 2serial/1parallel card

Any ideas on this mysterious failure would be greatly appreciated. When
the larger hard drive arrives, I can start hacking but until then...

doug
-- 
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douglas barnes, barnesdo@CS.ColoState.EDU