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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.erols.net!nntp.crl.com!Symiserver2.symantec.com!news From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Strange boot problem on install Date: 18 Nov 1996 05:04:03 GMT Organization: Symantec Corp. Lines: 30 Message-ID: <56oqo3$pak@Symiserver2.symantec.com> References: <328C9B93.B57@sonic.net> Reply-To: tedm@agora.rdrop.com NNTP-Posting-Host: shiva2.central.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2.5 In <328C9B93.B57@sonic.net>, "Eric J. Rossin" <ejr@sonic.net> writes: >Hi all! [deleted] >well anyway, we did an install (from CD); everything went fine. Then, >when I re-boot from disk, the same thing happens! I had to explicitly >enter "wd(1,a)kernel" (we had installed on the second drive), and it >worked. Simply hitting return, or letting it default results in a >re-start of the computer. The IBM PC BIOS by default boots from drive 0, ie. drive C:, ie. the first drive in the chain. This is not changeable unless you have a fancy BIOS. Apparently, the freeBSD bootstrap install was writtin to drive 0, and of course, the bootstrap expects to transfer control to the operating system on the default boot drive 0. Since you have the OS installed on the second drive in the system, drive 1, the FreeBSD boot loader executing off of drive 0 looks at drive 0, sees that there isin't a valid Unix filesystem on it, and immediately reboots. I believe there is a setting to change in the bootstrap program installed on drive 0 that makes it boot the OS from whatever drive you want, you will have to dig this out. The reason they do this is because if the machine reboots and sees a filesystem that is too screwed up to even boot they don't want you to try loading the possibly damaged kernel off of it and scribbling all over your filesystem.