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From: phillip@mirriwinni.cse.rmit.edu.au (Phillip Musumeci)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1.5 and WIN95 install problems
Date: 23 Nov 1996 18:29:43 +1100
Organization: Computer Systems Engineering Department, RMIT Australia
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References: <32914239.40DE@sk.sympatico.ca>
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In-reply-to: Groo the Wanderer's message of Mon, 18 Nov 1996 21:14:33 -0800
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>>>>> "Groo" == Groo the Wanderer <kuzko@sk.sympatico.ca> writes:
Groo> I am trying with limited success to install Win95 and FreeBSD on
Groo> my computer. I have a 1.6G and an 800 MB hardrive. Drive
Groo> Geometry 3148/16/63 & 1647/16/63
Your BIOS must be treating these disks as NORMAL or LARGE but definitely
*not* LBA --- this is good.
Groo> I try to create a 100MB slice for WIN95, then a 96MB slice for
Groo> FreeBSD then 1100MB for WIN95 then the rest for FreeBSD with all
Groo> of the second disk for FreeBSD.
This should be OK as the first two partitions are at cylinders <1024 so an
operating system executable can be loaded (via the BIOS disk access calls)
to get your system up and running.
You will have noticed disk cylinder numbers when slicing up the disk with
freebsd.
Groo> Install goes fine but then on boot when I select F2 (the first
Groo> FreeBSD slice) it does nothing (it may spin up the hard drive but
Groo> that's it). WIN95 (F1) boots fine.
Weird... if that first BSD partition was damaged in some way (like by a DOS
format that thought it was formatting a slice larger than 100MB), then the
first BSD slice would be missing and that would mean that the boot manager
might be attempting to do the impossible --- load in a non-existing /kernel
file from the 4th disk slice (2nd BSD slice) at a cylinder way beyond 1024.
It might be worth manually using FDISK to delete and then recreate the
first DOS disk slice. I once observed a DOS-5 format utility that, when
used to format the first DOS slice of a disk, seemed to happily ignore the
disk partition info and just use the whole disk! We eventually found that
if you used DOS's FDISK to delete and then recreate the DOS slices, then
format got its act in order (and you didn't kiss your other partitions
goodbye). If this is happening to you, I'd like to get a confirmation.
Groo> After partitioning the disk with FreeBSD I then install WIN95
Groo> which trashes booteasy so I have to reinstall FreeBSD. Any
Groo> advice on this and can I just reinstall booteasy without
Groo> installing FreeBSD?
You can rewrite your booteasy without a reinstall of FreeBSD --- one way is
to fire up the freebsd install boot floppy and when you again see your disk
slice info, use the W command to write it back to disk and then you'll be
asked to write the boot manager and then you can quit. Alternatively, look
on the CD in the tools area --- you'll see a DOS bteasy17.zip file.
Groo> I have a NEC IDE CDROM (made for DELL). Once I get FreeBSD up, I
Groo> can configure the kernel and it works fine but I've tried Master
Groo> and slave combos with no luck to install from the NEC.
I understand that with 2.1.x freebsd, an IDE CD drive has to be the second
device on your first controller. Also, you'll probably have to recompile a
kernel which doesn't probe the CD during the bootup (some CDs don't like
being probed as if they were disks). Worry about this once you've got the
install sorted out.
I have some "getting old" help info that touches on this at
ftp://pm.cse.rmit.edu.au/pub/FreeBSD/misc/*notes
(grab the files with names ending in "notes").
Good luck,
phillip
--
__ /\
Dr. Phillip Musumeci / \/ ~\ Dept. of Computer Systems Engineering,
mail:phillip@rmit.edu.au / \ RMIT, GPO Box 2476V,
Tel:+61 3 96605340(fax) / / Melbourne 3001, AUSTRALIA.
+61 3 96605317(w1) \ __ / http://pm.cse.rmit.edu.au/~phillip
+61 3 96605383(w2) `-' \*/ Level 2, 410 Elizabeth Steet. [87.2.15G]
.
UNIX _IS_ user friendly. It's just selective about who its friends are.
--unknown