Very Computer

Hi:

I installed 4.1 from scratch on a Digital Celebris P133 box [Phoenix 4.14
BIOS] with an Adaptec AIC 7850 SCSI controller and a 2GB Seagate Barracuda
SCSI disk. The install goes fine [I have to boot from floppy as this system
doesn't support bootable CDROM].

After install, I cannot boot from the disk [which shows up as C: i.e.
disk1].

If I install 4.0 from scratch and then *upgrade* to 4.1 it boots OK. I have
duplicated this on a 2nd machine [same kind of box, but 3 SCSI disks].

I understand that the 4.1 i386 bootstrap code is 2x bigger. Is there some
magic that needs to happen for an older BIOS to work with the new boot
system? I tried 'boot0cfg -o packet' but got no improvement. The system
fails to boot whether I use the boot manager or the basic FreeBSD-only
loader.

Thanks - Jeff Stelzner

I have the same problem with an Acer Altos 1100E, motherb = M19A
(whatever that means) and an ADAPTEC 3950U2  

It seems to be a problem with the bootstrap, but I am at a loss too.

Any help would be appreciated.  Theres no logs cuz the kernal never
loads.

Thanks - Neil

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 18:25:46 GMT, "Norbert Wiener"

I followed up with the folks who maintain the boot loader code.

#1 The boot loader that came with freebsd-4.1-release is bollux. You need to
get the update from http://people.freebsd.org/~jhb/4.1R/i386/boot0 per the
notes in the 4.1 Errata. Alternatively, track -stable via cvsup, make world,
and re-install the newly-updated boot loader.

#2 My SCSI disk [an old Seagate] was reporting wacky geometry, 32
sectors/track. Apparently this can confuse the boot code. I tried manually
tweaking the disklabel to be more normal, but no joy.

Anyway, I was never able to get that disk to work. I ended up swapping for
an ST32550N which reported a geometry of 63 sectors/track, and was able to
install either of the 4.1 loaders [/boot/boot0 or /boot/mbr] and have it
boot.

-Jeff-