George Georgalis wrote:

>On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 03:27:12AM -0600, David Bronder wrote:
>  
>
>>David Laight wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 11:37:17PM +0100, Sigmund Skjelnes wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Well, I'd have booted from cd, and ran installboot:
>>>>installboot /dev/rwd0a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
>>>>
>>>>No change, booting stops with "NetBSD MBR boot". Sorry.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Check that the 'a' partition starts in the same place as the netbsd
>>>mbr partition.  If not you'll need to run installboot specifying the
>>>partition that is there, instead of 'a'.
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm having the same problem on a P-II/300 MHz Gateway box with an 80 GB
>>Western Digital drive.  I've tried running installboot as above, as
>>well as fdisk -c (per an earlier thread from the list), using a smaller
>>partition for NetBSD, etc.  I'm booting from install floppies instead
>>of a CD, but the results are the same (the floppy light comes on solid
>>and the HDD activity light flashes rapidly).
>>
>>My 'a' and 'c' partitions match the single BIOS partition; all start
>>at sector 63.
>>
>>I've tried NetBSD 3.0 release and various daily snapshots of netbsd-3
>>and netbsd-3-0 branches (including the install floppies from those
>>snapshots).  I just tried again with netbsd-3/200602120000Z, and had
>>the same result (as-installed by sysinst, running installboot manually
>>off the floppy boot, and running installboot after booting to the hard
>>drive using the install bootloader on the floppy).
>>
>>An install of 1.6.2 from floppies works fine.
>>    
>>
>
>I had a very similar problem but on a dual Xeon -- 2.0.2 worked
>fine, 3.0 would not boot. It was first resolved by disconnecting
>the ATA disk and using the onboard scsi instead. There was also
>APCI problems. A full resolution came through a BIOS update.
>
>If a new bios is available these links, will help install it.
>
>Non-Windows Based Image Files W/ImageApp
>http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
>DOS 6.22 | Win98 | Win98SE | WinMe
>Special Disk For Bios Flashing
>http://1gighost.net/jerseyboy/drdflash.zip 
>
>Good luck,
>// George
>
>
>  
>
Did an BIOS upgrade with the latest version available from Intel, and 
now it boots ok! Thanks a lot!

However, to do that upgrade was'nt at all easy. Intel wrote that the 
upgrade software was OS independent, but show up VERY dependent on 
MSDOS. Luckily, I'd were able to dig up some very old dos install 
diskettes, which did the job. Alas, I'd had an Windows XP laptop, but 
that one do not have an 3 1/2 drive, so I'd could not use that one. 
Intel got their update as an zip self exeutable, and those could be 
extracted with unzip ( thank God ). I'd could then make an dos bootable 
diskette, and copy all the necessary files over to that one. Had a stock 
of diskettes, but they're full of data errors, made it on the fourth 
attempt, and the update went ok.

Case closed.

Cincerely,
Sigmund