*BSD News Article 92186


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!nsw1.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!btnet!netcom.net.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news2.acs.oakland.edu!newsfeed.concentric.net!news-master!not-for-mail
From: Rslater@cris.com (Rick Slater)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Install kernel panic problem
Date: 26 Mar 1997 18:32:58 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
Message-ID: <5hbq4q$8rn@chronicle.concentric.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: galileo.cris.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0]
Lines: 42
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:37930


As some of you know, I've been trying to get FreeBSD 2.1.0 to deal with
a 4 Gig EIDE drive, one half of which is devoted to Windows 95 in a 2047M
primary dos partition.  One of the very first things I did was to carefully
trash the dos partition by letting FreeBSD write to it.  At the time, I 
didn't realize that FreeBSD is limited to 1024M dos partitions.

After restoring the machine to its original configuration from a backup
tape, I decided not to repartition the Win 95 area, but rather to shrink
an extended dos partition that covered the remainder of the disk and
install FreeBSD in what remained.

The extended dos partition was resized to 1004M with the dos fdisk
program, and the FreeBSD cdrom installation program was started.  Unlike
the previous install (which had to deal with only one dos partition),
this one did not succeed.  After selecting (C)ommit from the installation
menu, the kernel paniced!  No changes were made to either the MBR or the
partition table (the panic message indicated an install read error), and
Windows 95 successfully rebooted.

FreeBSD sees the disk as: 527 cyl, 255 heads, 63 sectors at the
installation menus, whereas BIOS and the FreeBSD IDE install kernel both
see it as 8400 cyl, 16 heads, and 63 sec/track.  I don't know enough about
EIDE to know if this is really significant, but the last time assumed that
it probably was not and got a successful installation.

There were only two things that were different in this second and failing
attempt: (1) There was an extended dos partition present, and (2) I had
asked the installation program to install the boot manager (the first time
it was asked to leave the MBR alone).

Is it the presence of the extended partition that is leading to the read
error and panic?  If so, should I wait for the version 2.2 cdrom to arrive
before continuing?

Thanks again,
Rick Slater

-- 
I am Pentium of Borg.
Division is futile.
You will be approximated.