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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!ames!usenet.kornet.nm.kr!news.kreonet.re.kr!usenet.seri.re.kr!news.cais.net!primus.ac.net!news.serv.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.mathworks.com!gatech!gt-news!cc.gatech.edu!cau From: cau@cc.gatech.edu (Carlos Ugarte) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Install prob w/ 2.1R - cannot mount root on mixed IDE/SCSI Date: 28 Jan 1996 13:53:59 -0500 Organization: College of Computing, Georgia Tech Lines: 59 Message-ID: <4eggo7$cu@oscar.cc.gatech.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: oscar.cc.gatech.edu NNTP-Posting-User: cau Hi, I'm trying to install FreeBSD 2.1-RELEASE, but am running into a problem late in the install phase. Or rather, when it first boots. The install itself actually seems to work well - I've used the "Novice install", and the minimal install (for now, at least until I can get it to work). After the install, and the reboot, FreeBSD starts to load. It seems the kernel is loading fine; it probes the devices and all that (no problem). When it gets to the part where it mounts the root filesystem, I get a panic, and a forced reboot. It goes something like this: ... changing root device to sd2a panic: cannot mount root <some blurb about rebooting in 15 seconds> About the machine: there's three hard drives in there, two IDEs and one SCSI. I am installing it on the SCSI - Seagate ST11200N (right about 1 gig formatted), set at SCSI ID 0 (making it sd0, right?). The two IDEs are defined in the CMOS, so the system sees them first. The SCSI adaptor I am using is an Adaptec 1542CF. I believe I have set all the parameters of the 1542 correctly (I've enabled it so that more than 2 hard drives will work, >1gig translation disabled, etc.). Termination is correct, etc. (no problems in the SCSI chain). Right now I am booting FreeBSD using OS-BS, but have tried OS/2's Boot Manager as well. No matter which I use, I get the same problem. I would have thought that the root device would be sd0a (that's what fdisk, under the ALT-F4 shell while installing, reports it as), rather than sd2a (what it looks for on booting up). I looked all over /etc (in the ALT-F4 shell) trying to figure out how to switch it, but no go. On reading the handbook (or maybe it was the FAQ), it seems that the determination of the root filesystem is done by the kernel, so it would not be in a file. Oh well. I do not think the problem lies with any of the hardware. The SCSI hard drive uses zone-bit vectoring (or whatever it's called), so it doesn't have a set number of cylinders, heads, and sectors/track. FreeBSD reports those numbers as 1005, 64, and 32 respectively (these last two agree with the FAQ/handbook). There is nothing else on the drive (DOS or any other operating systems). I have tried making "small" partitions (400 megs) as well as using the entire disk (even using the "dangerous" option). Any ideas? I could go to an earlier version, or a later one (CURRENT, I guess). If it makes a difference, I am installing using FTP. Carlos -- Carlos A. Ugarte cau@cc.gatech.edu Author of PageMage, a virtual desktop util for OS/2 http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people/home/cau/ Computer Science Senior at Georgia Tech