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Hi everyone,

I am ready to pull out of this thread, bitten in the battle! As far as I am
concerned, this thread should be closed too. The "discoveries" I made in the
past few days are incredible, though, they are nothing new, just a solid
confirmation that today's computer technology stinks, and the related issues are
not really NetBSD issues, but rather hardware related, and affect all BIOS based
operating systems.

I have systematically tested all my CMOS and EISA configuration options for
Standard Mode, and quite a few for Enhanced Mode. As my testing progressed in
Enhanced Mode it was becoming obvious the problem was with the hardware, more
precisely EPROM BIOS. So I decided, to call my PC maker, requesting BIOS
upgrade. I do not wish to go in detail here. This BIOS "upgrade", completely
destroyed my SCSI disk subsystem, not only affecting NetBSD install, but also
MS-DOS, as well as Win95, which used to work with old BIOS. I was offered to
demote BIOS back to what it used to be, but this is not the solution!

There are patches available for SCSI controllers via DOS drivers, but this is
not the solution, and I haven't tested them. I found, the installation
instructions for BIOS upgrade misleading and flawed as well as buggy, linked to
third party chip and controller makers, from whom one should obtain additional
updates and replacements. I consider such conduct of the computer industry
intolerable, and a potential source of einfections. If one is not extremely
coitus, when downloading and unpacking the patches on the healthy systems those
may also get "sick".

Let me conclude with the confirmation of my opening question in this thread; I
lost the battle indeed, and will need to regroup again, as already so many times
since the release of Win95.

Regards, from not so happy, but a bit wiser fellow.

Igor H. Pirnovar







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