Boot loader doesn't see [root filesystem on] ATA disk after
successful install
Joel
rees at ddcom.co.jp
Tue May 10 23:05:37 PDT 2005
On Tue, 10 May 2005 22:23:28 -0700 (PDT)
Brian O'Shea <b_oshea at yahoo.com> wrote
> [...]
> There is a boot loader installed in the MBR of both disks, but I am
> trying to boot the IDE disk from the loader on its own MBR. I didn't
> try booting the loader from the SCSI disk and then having it try to
> boot the IDE disk, but I don't think it would make a difference. I'll
> give it a try tomorrow though, just for the sake completeness.
From what little I've seen, it could be worth a try if you have the time.
> [...]
> It can boot from the CD-ROM drive, which is on the same ATA controller.
> I have both the IDE disk and the CD-ROM drive set to cable select for
> their master/slave configuration. Could this be the problem?
I am told that cable select is more reliable with modern cables, less
reliable with older cables. (UDMA being modern if I recall correctly.)
You can search the web on "UDMA cable" to get quite a bit of information
on the cabling and positioning issues. There's a site called, I think,
pcguide, that is quite helpful.
> I'll
> try explicitly setting the IDE disk to master and CD-ROM to slave.
From what I've read and what I've experienced, putting hard disks and
CD-ROMs on the same channel is counterproductive. Boot problems and data
problems are said to be likely on many controller and drive combinations.
> > If you can boot from the SCSI, check the dmesg there to see whether the
> > ATA controller is recognized by the older system. That wouldn't give an
> > absolute answer, but might yield a clue.
>
> The older system can see the CD-ROM drive, so it must be recognizing the
> ATA controller. I'll post the relevant dmesg output tomorrow though.
>
> > I hear that it's usually best to just let freeBSD's formatting utilities
> > do what they think they should and not try to meddle with that.
>
> Oh, well. Too late for that! Maybe I can set it back to the old
> values.
When I was trying to set the geometry by hand, I found that fdisk and
disklabel would go back to the geometry they thought was best.
> However, when I changed the geometry to what the BIOS thought
> was correct, the reported disk size was closer to the advertised size.
> In both cases though the symptom was the same.
I thought I noticed something like that happen at one point while trying
to set the geometry by hand, but I dom't remember the details.
--
Joel Rees <rees at ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc. 株式会社デジコム
Kobe, Japan +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **
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