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From: t93808ts@sfc.keio.ac.jp (Tomomasu Shimizu)
Subject: Help! Can't even Boot -s!!!
Message-ID: <T93808TS.95Dec10022709@ccn17.sfc.keio.ac.jp>
Sender: news@sfc.keio.ac.jp
Nntp-Posting-Host: ccn17.sfc.keio.ac.jp
Organization: Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus.
Distribution: comp
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 17:27:09 GMT
Lines: 81
Hi,
I'm having serious problems with my computer running FreeBSD
2.0.5 and DOS(and Windows 3.1). Right now, I can't even boot in
single user mode. I would greatly appreciate any help I can get right
now. Here is my situation:
<<HARDWARE>>
Mother board: ASUSTek P/I-P55TP4XE
Hard Disk: IBM-DPES31080(SCSI-2)(1GB)
SCSI controller: Adaptec AHA-2940
CD-ROM drive: TOSHIBA XM5301B
Video card: Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM(2MB)
Sound card: SoundBlaster VIBRA 16
I installed 2.0.5 for the first time on my brand new system a few
weeks ago, and it was running just fine for a couple of weeks. Then
about a week ago, after running "find -ls" as root, I found that I
could no longer access the /usr partition. When executing commands
that reside in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin it would give an error
message like:
"/usr/local/bin/colorls: Not a Directory."
Being the novice (not so)super user that I am, I had no clue what to
do. So I tried logging out, which caused the system to hang. I tried
rebooting, but it wouldn't go any further than "changing root device
to sd0."
A friend told me that my /usr file system might be corrupted, and that
I should try the "fsck" command under single user mode. So I tried to
boot under single user mode(that's Boot: -s, isn't it?) but, again I
couldn't get any further than "changing root device to sd0." Does
this mean that my root file system is corrupted? Anyway, I, at this
point, was convinced that all this was caused by some careless mistake
I made when I was logged in as root. So, I decided to reinstall
FreeBSD and start all over. Everything was going fine with the
re-installed system until yesterday, when the exact same thing(losing
access to my /usr partition) happened after I untarred some fonts from
a CD-ROM. Again, I can't boot at all.
Now I am convinced that this is a hardware problem, since I was doing
two totally different things when this happened. And since both
"find" and "tar -xzf" accompany quite a lot of hard disk activity, I
am suspecting that the problem is either my Adaptec host adapter and
the motherboard, or the hard disk itself.
You see, I had had some problems when I was first installing FreeBSD
from CD-ROM; the installation would hang while copying /bin files to
my hard disk. I had been advised to make the following changes in my
BIOS and host adapter settings in order to fix this problem.
In BIOS setup:
CHIPSET FEATURES:
Auto Configuration: changed Enabled to Disabled
DRAM Write Timing: changed x333 to x222
CPU to PCI Burst : Disabled
PNP and PCI:
Slot2: changed Auto to NA
In Host Adapter setup:
#0(hard disk)
Sync Neg. yes to no
Send Start Unit: no to yes
This did fix the problem with the installation, but I am wondering
if this is now causing the problems with my running system.
Thanx in advance.
--
=============================================
| Tom Shimizu |
| Department of Environmental Information,|
| Keio University |
| t93808ts@sfc.keio.ac.jp |
=============================================