*BSD News Article 69050


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD on second IDE drive
Date: 21 May 1996 07:15:26 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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References: <slrn4q1m30.uu.bspring@j51.com>
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bspring@j51.com (Brian Springstead) wrote:

> I'm looking to install FreeBSD on a machine, but it will
> have to be on the second IDE drive (D: in DOS).  Someone
> told me that this isn't possible with FreeBSD.  Is he 
> correct or incorrect?  I checked the FAQ and didn't find
> the answer.

It should be there.  Basically, you need to install the boot manger to
both drives, since it will only be loaded from the first drive
initially.

> Also is there a way of making a floppy boot disk that will
> automagicly boot to BSD without the user having to type
> in anything.  I know in Linux I can use "dd" to copy
> the kernel to the disk.  Does this work in FreeBSD?
> Is there another way?

It's not that simple.  You could put a kernel onto a UFS floppy, but
this one would try to mount / from the floppy (and barf about the
missing /sbin/init).

Even the bootblocks itself on the floppy would be sufficient, but you
have to tweak them to default to the hard disk instead of the floppy.
(They normally default to the device they've been loaded from.)

The source for the bootblocks is in /sys/i386/boot/biosboot/.  Do a
``make; make install'' there after modifying it, and then ``disklabel
-Brw fd0 fd1200'' in order to write the new boot blocks to a floppy.
For sanity, reverse your changes later (or make them #ifdef'ed), and
do another ``make; make install'' in order to get the original
bootblocks into /usr/share/mdec.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)