*BSD News Article 32721


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!hookup!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jacques
From: jacques@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Jacques Legare)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD endless reboot woes :-(
Message-ID: <CsvyA4.HDK@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
Sender: news@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (News Administrator)
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
References: <CsuDsG.B98@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> <2vvoab$of1@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 15:42:03 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <2vvoab$of1@pdq.coe.montana.edu>,
Nate Williams <nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu> wrote:

>What version of the O.S.?  How did you install it?  What happened
>when you installed it?  Details, details.

1) FreeBSD v. 1.1 From the Walnut Creek CD-ROM.
2) I can't. At least not on my MAGUS 486-66 machine.
3) The kcopy obtained from the CDROM will not boot.

The last thing printed before the reboot is

text=0x75000 data=0x8000 bss=0x1a3dc

This is a real cheapo flea market brand motherboard that my employer
uses for OS/2 development.  I have a feeling this board _may_ be stealing
some RAM for something it does in a way that does not affect DOS and OS/2
but that is nonetheless nonstandard.

>Yes.... Oh, you want me to tell you.  I suspect your kernel and/or
>root filesystem is corrupted.

The kernel is OK since this disk (kcopy) will boot on at least two other
different types of motherboards.

The load is failing after boot has finished loading the kernel
and just before boot2 gets control.  It is probably doing a call
to an invalid address.

I suspect that the solution will be to change the default calculations
that boot uses to decide where to load the kernel.

This suspicion is strengthened by two things.  When I attempt to boot
on the cheapo the addresses reported are different from when I boot
on other machines (with identical memory configurations), also FreeBSD
detects _639K_ of conventional memory.

Naturally I have tried Enabling/Disabling the shadow ROM options
in all combinations, to no avail.

Sorry if there are typos in here my modem is frogging all over the place.