On 04/08/2005 Oliver Fuchs wrote:
>> It is not completly clear what exactly happens with Olivers's installation
>> since he does not report precisely enough what happens. But he apparently
>> can not get past mbr into boot1.

> It is very clear:
> I have a running netbsd 1.6.1 on my second harddisk
> I wanted to do a fresh install of netbsd 2.0 so I ran sysinst with
> "use the whole disk" and "use existing partition sizes"
> I then booted directly into harddisk  number 2 (changed the bios boot
> parameter to "Boot another device: hd1"
> I got the error message: "No operating system found"
> Trying to install bootselector on wd0 I get (after setting the bi?s
> boot parameter to default again) error message "3".
> Partitioning the harddisk number 2 with  FreeBSD sysinstall  I could
> install netbsd 1.6.1 again and update it to netbsd 2.0
>
No doubt, it is very clear that you in fact had trouble.

But your reporting only generally describes misfortune that you have experienced
and is not precise enough to provide enough clues about what was happening
"below the surface".

Sometimes reporting "No operating system" and at other times "No operating system found",
for example, has quite a significant difference. The former likely comes from the NetBSD
mbr boot code and the latter could come from BIOS or perhaps from someone else's mbr.

It is not clear if the problem you complain about is reliably reproducible, and
whether it is a bug, or simply a "finger slippage". If the latter is true, it may
not be worthwhile for other people spending their time on a nonexisting problem.

You are the best possible source of information in regard to this problem, since you
have actually experienced it. Even if other people literally followed the procedure
they might might not see the problem because of some minor difference in their setup
or some important detail missing in the report. It is a lot harder or even impossible
to reproduce the problem, let alone make a valid hypothesis, if the stated facts are
imprecise or incomplete. So unless you can describe the problem with sufficient accuracy,
relevant and correct details, especially those you have been asked for, maybe nobody
can help.

Please check here:
http://www.netbsd.org/Misc/send-pr.html
http://www.netbsd.org/Misc/pr-hints.html
for hints on how to report a problem.

>> 
>> But given the fact tha he saw the "No operating system" string, it must have
>> come from the mbr without bootselector code. This error message can be triggered,
>> as far as I can tell, only by mbr boot code not seing MBR_MAGIC in the same
>> sector. So something must be stepping on the offending sector, or
>> perhaps sysinst does not put MBR_MAGIC into the mbr in the first place.
>> 
>> Thank you for your "rototilling" of this code. It is now greatly improved
>> since 1.3 and now provides full and unambiguous control during disk maintenance.
>
> What does "rototilling" mean?
>
> Oliver

Perhaps you could check a dictionary for a literal meaning of the word. I was referring 
to the substantial work David Laight has contributed in this area over the years,
some of which has been extensively discussed using this term here:
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2003/06/


Take care,
Nenad