Installing on IBM Z61t

[Jerry McAllister]

Problem solved - partly anyway.
It is apparently a marginal CD burn.

> You can go to bootdisk.org or freedos.org and download an iso image to make 
> a bootable CD.  I think you need to first get your system actually booting 
> a CD of any OS, then move on to installing FreeBSD.

OK.   I scrounged up another boot CD I had around.
It booted OK.   So, I checked this CD some more.  It booted on
some machines and not on others.

I had the person in the next office burn the same file and
it works on the IBM notebook.    

> It may be your BIOS isn't booting the CD or you simply have a CD with a bad 
> boot image.  So getting a CD that does indeed boot is the first step.
> 
> Being able to read a CD is not sufficient.  Bootable CD's have a strict 
> format that must be in place or the boot fails.

What was throwing me off was that I had tried it on a couple of machines
with no problem, but then I hit the notebook machine and it failed.
Then, when I was checking further, it failed on another machine that
already had FreeBSD installed - using a different CD.  So, I got someone
to burn one on a different machine and it works.

I wonder, though if there is something different with how burncd works
in FreeBSD 6.0 or 6.1.    First of all, the device name I had to use
used to be acd0c and now that isn't there and I tried to use acd0 - 
without the 'c'.   It seemed to try and burn, but always failed in
the fixate step.   Previously I was using FreeBSD 4.9 and this is 
the first time I have tried it in 6.1 and then got the same failure
on another machine in 6.0.

So, might I be missing something?   

I have done lots of burns (successfully) on the one on the 6.1 machine 
so am not totally surprised that it may have died.

But, I hardly expect that that other machine running 6.0 would have
worn out the burner because I probably haven't done more than one or 
two burns on it since getting it.   

By the way, none of this explains why I was unable to boot from the
boot floppy installation set.   It just kept scrolling up junk on
the screen.   It worked fine on all the desk machines I have handy,
but not the notebook machine.

////jerry


>          -Derek
> 
> At 08:14 PM 8/21/2006, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > >
> > > I would check that you have the IDE interface enabled that the CD plugs
> > > into.  Have you tried booting other bootable CD's like a WinXP CD just to
> > > see if you get it to boot from CD.
> >
> >I don't happen to have any other bootable CDs handy.
> >But, I was able to read CDs on that drive in XP.
> >They were just videos, etc.
> >They were not bootable, though, so I didn't attempt to boot with them.
> >
> >////jerry
> >
> > >
> > >          -Derek
> > >
> > > At 05:20 PM 8/21/2006, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > > >Hi All,
> > > >
> > > >I am trying to set up a notebook computer for someone (I only have
> > > >towers and rackmount servers running FreeBSD myself).
> > > >
> > > >The machine is an IBM Z61t Lenova with 2 GHz Intel CPU, 1 GB memory
> > > >The BIOS version is 1.06  (7FET46WW)  of 2006-04-27
> > > >
> > > >I has an:  ATAPI CD0:MATSHITADVD-RAM UK-842-(PM)  cd/dvd reader/burner.
> > > >
> > > >I got a USB floppy and put it on too.
> > > >
> > > >The boot order in BIOS is currently CD, Floppy Hard disk
> > > >
> > > >I have switched floppy and CD a couple of times and removed
> > > >a number of other thing from the boot order - mostly things
> > > >that are not actually on the machine.
> > > >
> > > >I was able to boot Partition Magic with the USB floppy and fix up
> > > >the hard disk to make room.   I added a FAT32 (#3) slice and an
> > > >undesignated slice (#4).  I hoped to add FreeBSD to the undesignated
> > > >slice and use the FAT32 for communication between WinXP and FreeBSD
> > > >since the XP slice was NTFS.
> > > >
> > > >But, it will not boot the FreeBSD 6.1 installation CD - it completely
> > > >ignores it and boots WinXP, even though it looks like it is enabled
> > > >in the BIOS.   It doesn't even seem to try booting the CD and fail.
> > > >The BIOS doesn't appear to talk to it at all.
> > > >
> > > >That CD worked fine in another (deskside) machine - a Dell, by
> > > >the way.   I had no trouble doing an install with it on that machine.
> > > >
> > > >So, I made a set of 6.1 install floppies.
> > > >Although the Partition Magic (several years old copy) floppies booted
> > > >just fine, when I started to boot from the boot.flp floppy it read it
> > > >and then started repeatedly dumping some message on the screen.  It
> > > >just kept scrolling up too fast to read.  It looked like it might
> > > >be 5 or 6 lines long.
> > > >
> > > >Just in case it was telling me to put in the kern1.flp, I did that
> > > >and hit enter, but it did not stop scrolling what appeared to be
> > > >the same message, nor did it appear to read that floppy at all.
> > > >
> > > >I have rummaged through the BIOS setup and not found anything that
> > > >jumps out at me that I should turn on or off.   I did not find
> > > >anything that looked like 'plug n play'.
> > > >
> > > >So, my obvious question is: (questions are:)
> > > >Is there any hope of installing FreeBSD on this notebook computer?
> > > >Is there something I can turn on or off to make it work?
> > > >Why will the old Partition Magic floppy work, but the new FreeBSD 6.1 not?
> > > >Why doesn't the BIOS even attempt to check the CD for a boot sector,
> > > >but just ignore it completely and boot the HD?
> > > >
> > > >Thanks for any clues or solid informatino,
> > > >
> > > >////jerry
> > > >