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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!unixg.ubc.ca!kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca!access.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!umrose05 From: umrose05@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dave Rose) Subject: Re: [386bsd] Strange solution to booting problem Message-ID: <1992Sep18.165853.7218@ccu.umanitoba.ca> Sender: news@ccu.umanitoba.ca Nntp-Posting-Host: bova.cc.umanitoba.ca Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada References: <1992Sep17.004545.2065@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu> <19aneaINNkp@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 16:58:53 GMT Lines: 44 In <19aneaINNkp@agate.berkeley.edu> wjolitz@soda.berkeley.edu (William F. Jolitz) writes: >Ah ha! This is actually very significant! Good for you (and lady luck). >Some BIOS use slightly different parameters for the floppy disk controller >to make it faster -- if this fails, it should fall back on the "less >efficient" values. >What I believe happened is this: By inserting the wrong non-bootable >floppy, a program left by DOS was run (hence, your error message). >which adjusted the values to "slow" When you immediately followed up >with the Tiny 386BSD floppy, it worked. In other words, you imposed >a timing delay in the bootstrap (it must be loading too quickly). >Simply trying to boot the floppy over and over could not "readjust" >the values. >Here's a simple test to validate this -- measure the time between the blink >of the floppy disk light and the keyboard blinks for the failed case and the >successful case. It should lengthen. >This is an important find. The bootstrap code will have to be carefully >reexamined (as usual). >Lynne Jolitz. ` As a note, I have a 386-33 ACT motherboard, with AMI bios, and I too was having major trouble getting it to boot off the Tiny BSD floppy...at first I hadn't a clue, but I figured it had something to do with my hard drives...but it did not, but I did stumble across something that makes my system boot everytime. When my system first comes up, I press <DEL> to kick me into the cmos set up area, and then instead of going into the cmos and changing anything,` I just select the "EXIT FOR BOOT" option, and wam. BSD boots up fine. If I do not go through this procedure EVERYTIME I boot of the HD or floppies, my system just blinks the 3 lights on the keyboard and HANGS HARD...with the A: light on my drive staying on for as long as I let it. Don't ask me why this works, cause I haven't got a clue, but it works for me...BTW - I've installed almost every different version of things to patch this problem, but none of them have worked in my case.