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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.crl.com!news.fibr.net!usenet From: Rob Snow <rsnow@txdirect.net> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Boot problems with Promise EIDE controller Date: 29 Sep 1995 09:47:19 GMT Organization: G3 Research, Inc. Lines: 60 Message-ID: <44gfb7$54j@nimitz.fibr.net> References: <446m0u$m15@fsgm01.fnal.gov> <449g5d$kg1@interport.net> <44fulq$i4k@interport.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: oasis.txdirect.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (X11; I; BSD/386 uname failed) X-URL: news:44fulq$i4k@interport.net deng@interport.net (Daniel Eng) wrote: >Daniel Eng (deng@interport.net) wrote: >: Marc Mengel (mengel@fsgm01.fnal.gov) wrote: >: : Recently I bought a Samsung 1.1G EIDE drive, and a Promise EIDE-MAX >: : "controller", which has a Promise ROM for boot code, etc. for EIDE. >: : The FreeBSD first stage boot loaders (floppy or hard drive) don't work >: : with this ROM in the system. > >: : At all. > >: : The FreeBSD banner message doesn't even come up. > >: : I tried FreeBSD 1.0, 2.0, and 2.05 boot floppies, none of them would >: : bring up the bootstrap loader. > >: : On the other hand a NetBSD boot floppy boot loader comes up; and if >: : you boot off of it to the "boot:" prompt, swap floppies to the FreeBSD 2.05 >: : floppy, and then boot "fd(0,a)/kernel", it comes right up, lets you install, >: : etc. So it's not a kernel problem; it's just the first stage boot that >: : breaks with these ROMs in the system. > >: : If I pull the controller and put my trusty old ESDI controller back in >: : the system, they all boot just fine. > >: : DOS boots regardless. > >: I have the same problem with a Promise 2300+ card. Installation seems to >: work fine, but the operating system would never come up. I'm not sure how >: the UNIX drivers that came with the card would work. It would be a shame >: not to have to revert back to the IDE controller on the motherboard. I hope >: someone comes up with the solution soon, otherwise, I will have to switch >: back to Linux. > >I sent a message to Promise and they got back to me within one day! They >suggested disabling the BIOS on the card and now everything works fine. I >am able to boot in FreeBSD. > >Maybe the FreeBSD kernel is checking for the ROM address for the IDE >controller in a different location. > >Dan >-- >Daniel Eng * deng@interport.net * http://www.interport.net/~deng * > [Certified OS/2 Engineer] | There are two things in life that are eternal: > [Team OS/2] | God's word and people. > [Gateway Users International] | Invest in those things that are eternal... Disabling the BIOS is the only way I've gotten my machine to boot. Also, I was jacking around last month and tried enabling the BIOS to see what would happen. BAD THINGS, as in: No more partition table. Since then I've left well enough alone. Oh, during the jacking around found that my 2300+ runs fine with a 50MHz VL-Bus. (as does my Stealth 64 VRAM) ______________________________________________________________________ Rob Snow Powered by FreeBSD rsnow@txdirect.net http://www.freebsd.org