Boot Loader Problem

John Do pcbsdguy at yahoo.ca
Sun Sep 18 14:01:36 PDT 2005


Hi Gary

Thanks for your help.  I am perplexed and frustrated
by BSD's bootloader :)

>> boot0cfg -B -s 5 -o packet ad0
>> boot0cfg -B -s 2 -o packet ad2

I did't try those yet because I wanted to see if you
could find a problem first.

I'll try those in a bit.

In the mean time I created a GRUB ISO boot CD and I
can simply boot BSD by booting with the GRUB CD and
typing:

rootnoverify (hd2,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

GRUB has always been simple and intuitive for me so
I'll stick with that and stay away from the hell of
the BSD boot loader :)

This really is my only gripe about FreeBSD I think it
should include GRUB or they need to create a better
native loader.

Thanks Gary and I'll let you know what happens with
the boot0cfg
--- "Gary W. Swearingen" <garys at opusnet.com> wrote:

> John Do <pcbsdguy at yahoo.ca> writes:
> 
> fdisk, etc, looked good.
> 
> > boot0cfg -v /dev/ad0
> >
> > #       flag     | start  chs  |   type    | end
> chs  
> >    |   offset  |  size
> > 1       0x80       0:   1:1        0x07      1023
> 254:63      63         40001787
> 
> OK.
> 
> > boot0cfg -v /dev/ad2
> >
> > #       flag     | start  chs  |   type    | end
> chs  
> >    |   offset  |  size
> > 1       0x00       0:   1:1        0x07      1023
> 254:63      63         133114527
> > 2       0x00     986:   2:1        0x05       903 
> 15:63   133114590     10239138
> > 3       0x00    1024 254:63        0x83      1023
> 254:63   143364060     48195
> 
> The type on line "2" should be 0xa5, not 0x05, but I
> suspect a typo.
> I don't know if one of the flag's needs to be 0x80,
> or not.  Both of
> my disks have one marked 0x80.  It's probably OK,
> and just means
> you don't have a default slice, eg, set with "-s 2"
> in boot0cfg.
> 
> >> I don't remember who asked what before, but you
> should also try:
> >> 
> >> boot0cfg -B -s 5 -o packet ad0
> >> boot0cfg -B -s 2 -o packet ad2
> 
> You didn't say if you tried those, but it doesn't
> seem to be the
> problem (yet).  You would need -o packet on ad2 and
> LBA BIOS mode, I
> think since your FreeBSD slice goes past 1024 cyls.
> 
> But that 133114590 number looks right, and I see no
> other problem.
> 
> So it looks like the the MBR code just doesn't see
> the second disk.
> Probably because the BIOS doesn't play well with the
> MBR code, and I
> can't think why.  It should even have to get the
> geometry right since
> it only has to grab the first sector of the disk. 
> And you know other
> software can see the disk.  At this point I'd give
> up on "boot0" and
> try to find a Grub (or GAG?) floppy to boot from. 
> It should let you
> boot both systems.  Or try a boot manager from the
> MSFT world.
> 
> Sorry.
> 



	

	
		
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