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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!news From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1.5 and WIN95 install problems Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 19:14:15 +0000 Organization: Erol's Internet Services Lines: 96 Message-ID: <32974D07.7189@www.play-hookey.com> References: <32914239.40DE@sk.sympatico.ca> <87viax2rrs.fsf@mirriwinni.cse.rmit.edu.au> Reply-To: kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; U) Phillip Musumeci wrote: > > >>>>> "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. Just my 2 cents worth -- My most common drive configuration is 255 MB for DOS, the rest of 1.2, 1.6, or 2 GB for FreeBSD. I do not run Win95. When installing FreeBSD 2.1R, I have always found that the installer assumes LBA geometry by default. I can change this manually. However, whichever way I install FreeBSD and the Boot Manager, it wants LBA mode to boot FreeBSD. There's no trouble with DOS either way, but if I disable LBA and request BSD, I just get a F? response. Enable LBA and all is happy once more. > > 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 -- Ken Are you interested in | byte-sized education | http://www.play-hookey.com over the Internet? |