On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:27:37PM +0100, Wolfgang Solfrank wrote:
> Given the above, I would have liked to see a copy of the start of the disk
> in order to analyze the problem further.

I should have saved the first sectors.. but I have to get a test system up
to try out ISDB4BSD and ..

> Assuming you could boot 1.3_BETA from that disk, and the 1.3_BETA install
> was also an install using the default settings, what was the exact problem
> of not being able to boot?  Did it show anything on the screen during your
> tries?

Right after the standard install of 1.3.3 (before erasing the first sector
of the disk), the machine just locked up when it was supposed to start
loading the kernel.  No messages were printed by the bootloader.

After erasing the first sector and doing installboot, the system didn't lock
up, but I saw a request to insert a bootable floppy in the drive (this was
actually a nice animation from the IBM BIOS :-)

Then I erased the first megabytes of the disk and did _exactly_ the same
install as before, rebooted - and it worked.

> Did you erase the first sector of the disk, or of the NetBSD partition?

Hmm.. I may have used "/dev/wd0d".. I think I used "/dev/rwd0d" on the
second time.  Anyway, erasing the disk before install _did_ help.

> The first sector of the NetBSD partition is the one that installboot
> overwrites (among others). (BTW, there is no need to erase anything
> before running installboot).

I guess I should be running fdisk all the time, not installboot, then?

  -jm