On Sun, 07 Apr 1996 12:29:41 -0500  Jeff Thieleke wrote:

> If I choose the default dos(1,a)/netbsd (or whatever it is), NetBSD
> boots, but panics when it can't find the root partition on wd1.
> 
> So what am I to do?  I am looking into what my BIOS options are, but
> I would be happy with simply using boot.com.

Firstly, you need a kernel that understands root on sd0 and swap on
sd0.  After that you need a way to load it.  Using the standard boot
blocks for this is out, since they use the BIOS.  (Using boot.com
might work but the version I located couldn't load a pretty fully
configured kernel -- "too large", it whined ...)

One solution that did work was to use a boot floppy with the custom
kernel on it, booting with '-r' so that it doesn't mount root from the
floppy disk.

You might build a custom set of boot blocks that default to '-r' and
also don't prompt for a filesystem diskette.

(Note: I don't have a machine with IDE and SCSI to test this, but have
certainly booted a kernel from fd0 that used wd1 for root, swap etc.)

Regards,

Giles