I have the following configuration:

Gateway 2000 P4D-66 (with 83MHz Pentium-Overdrive installed)
32M RAM

The motherboard has 2 IDE controllers (primary is a PCI, secondary is ISA,
both connectors on the motherboard).

The BIOS is PhoenixBIOS v4.04.C, with the "Operating System" parameter set
to "OTHER", PnP operating system set to "No", and APM set to "Disabled".


After installing NetBSD on the primary IDE drive (wd0, PCI controller), the
bootblock fails to load with a "Read error".  I'm unsure what's producing 
the message, but I assume it's the bootblock code.  Nothing else is printed,
and the message appears as soon as the BIOS hits the primary IDE for booting.

If I leave a bootable NetBSD floppy in A:, I can boot the hard drive kernel
no problem (with: wd(0,a)/netbsd).

Is there a known issue with the 1.2.1 bootblock code and this system?  Failing
any kind of resolution, can a floppy-based bootblock be built which simply
loads wd(0,a)/netbsd by default instead of fd(0,a)/netbsd?


Included below is the dmesg output of my custom kernel for this machine to show
what hardware NetBSD thinks is in the machine.




 NetBSD 1.2.1 (CTHULHU) #1: Tue Aug 12 17:09:51 PDT 1997
    root@cthulhu.old-ones.com:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/CTHULHU
CPU: Pentium (GenuineIntel 586-class CPU)
real mem  = 33157120
avail mem = 29216768
using 430 buffers containing 1761280 bytes of memory
mainbus0 (root)
isa0 at mainbus0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo
wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14
wd0 at wdc0 drive 0: 696MB, 1416 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec <WDC AC2700H>
wd0: using 16-sector 16-bit pio transfers, lba addressing
wd1 at wdc0 drive 1: 814MB, 1654 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec <WDC AC2850F>
wd1: using 16-sector 16-bit pio transfers, lba addressing
wdc1 at isa0 port 0x170-0x177 irq 15
ed2 at isa0 port 0x300-0x31f irq 10
ed2: address 00:40:05:14:34:5f, type NE2000 (16-bit)
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
pc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x6f irq 1: color
pms0 at pc0 irq 12
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
vendor 0x8086 product 0x0486 (class prehistoric, subclass miscellaneous, revision 0x02) at pci0 dev 5 function 0 not configured
vendor 0x1002 product 0x4758 (class display, subclass VGA, revision 0x01) at pci0 dev 9 function 0 not configured
vendor 0x1095 product 0x0640 (class mass storage, subclass IDE, revision 0x02) at pci0 dev 11 function 0 not configured
biomask c040 netmask c440 ttymask d45a
changing root device to wd0a



---

-wps