*BSD News Article 4959


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!kksys.com!edgar!brainiac!lmt!chrisc
From: chrisc@lmt.mn.org (Chris Cox  W0/G4JEC)
Subject: Boot problems on old 386/287 AMI system
Message-ID: <1992Sep12.164204.9973@lmt.mn.org>
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 16:42:04 GMT
Lines: 35

I have a fairly old 20MHz 386 system at home which has a '287 coprocessor
installed.

Last night, I tried an initial installation of 386BSD 0.0, however, I could
not get past the boot stage.

Specifically, after displaying the equipment configuration, and then inform-
ing me that it was switching the root to fd0a, the system hung.  I was able
to warm boot, so it was not locked tight.  The cursor was situated on the
following (blank) line after the message about switching to fd0a, 12 charac-
ter positions into the line.

The system configuration is:-
80386/20 no cache
80287/10
6MB RAM with Shadowing of ROM's disabled via setup.
AMI BIOS dated 15 Aug 88
Paradise Basic VGA
SMS/OMTI 1:1 MFM HDD/FDD controller
Wren II 36MB MFM drive
3.5" A: floppy
5.25" B: floppy
WD8003E ethernet
COM1 & COM2 (ususal config)
LPT1 at 0x378

I tried removing the WD8003e, and swapping the disk controller, however, the
results were identical.  I did NOT try disabling the 80287.

Will 386BSD boot on a machine which contains an 80287 coprocessor, or could 
this be a BIOS related problem?

Thanks for any help.

Chris