On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 12:23:45PM +0530, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> [...]
> 
> What are the steps that one need follow to install NetBSD without going
> through the install program ?   I tried the following today, and am unable
> to boot into NetBSD (1.5, btw):
> 
> 1. Made the boot floppies, and booted with them. 
> 2. Created a NetBSD partition (on wd0), disklabel-ed it, and mounted them
> under /mnt and /mnt/usr. 
> 3. Then I mounted the partition where I had the  .tgz files (base.tgz etc)
> under /mnt2. 
> 4. After this, I untarred those files to /mnt.
> 5. Then, cd /dev && ./MAKEDEV all. 
> 6. And: /usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym /dev/rwd0a 
> 7. reboot.
> 
> I use GRUB to boot my OSes, and I gave it the proper commands (root,
> chainloader, boot), but it refuses to boot.  I get some screen output like
> "^_@%"  and the machine hangs.
> 
> I then used my boot floppies to boot into NetBSD, and reissued the
> "installboot" command from there.  But still, same response from GRUB.
> 
> Then I tried to install the NetBSD boot-selector, and see if that might
> work.  Nope.  I the function key to boot NetBSD, and I just get a
> numerical output (ie, I press F5, and I get 3).
> 
> I have a 17 GB hard-disk, and NetBSD occupies the last 10 GBs.  It could
> be that NetBSD is beyond the "bootable region," but point is I have booted
> OpenBSD 2.7 and GNU/Linux from this same partition using GRUB (NBSD
> boot-selector didn't do the job).  Any suggestions ?
> 
> My only option remaining is install NBSD using the install program; but I
> thought I'd ask you guys once. :)

What does you partitions looks like (fdisk & disklabel) ?
I suspect a geometry problem.

--
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
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