loader and "Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor"

[Frank Shute]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 12:55:06PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>
> Trying to boot PC-BSD 1.4.1 and I get:
> 
> CD Loader 1.2
> Building the boot loader arguments
> Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found
> Read error: 0x10
> Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor
> 
> I find this discussed a lot, but haven't found a solution yet.
> 
> My BIOS is K7VM2 for ASRock 
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=K7VM2
> 
> I started with version P1.30 and now I updated to 1.90 (dated 9/5/2003).
> 
> (I have no floppy. So I downloaded freedos ISO image, mounted it, copied 
> it, added the flash utility and new flash, made new iso and burned it. It 
> booted fine and I could update flash fine. My BIOS indicated it was new.)
> 
> But I continue to get the "Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor" 
> error.
> 
> I have tried with two different CD drives.
> 
> Any ideas on how to solve this? Or is it just not possible to boot with my 
> BIOS?
> 
> What about using a different boot manager? And then have it boot the CD? 
> Any suggestions on that?

You could try making a CD with grub and try to boot that. You'll need
to know which partition/slice your root partition is on and you'll
obviously need a spare machine to build your boot CD on.

Instructions (I had to do it a few weeks back):

http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/misc/grub_setup.html

> 
>   Jeremy C. Reed
> 
> p.s. I may just try to boot it over the network... but I got to setup my 
> boot server for that.

Grub should be easier as long as your BIOS can boot CDs.

-- 

 Frank 

	
 Contact info: http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/misc/contact.html