In message <onwLv_q6LgUEJ=2g4S@zelux6>, Matthias Drochner writes:
>Excerpts from netbsd: 13-Aug-97 NetBSD 1.2.1 bootblock fail.. Bill
>Squier@guinness.cs. (2686)
>
>> 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.
>
>Yes, this is the sector 1 code unable to read the remainder
>of the boot code.
>If there are no geometry problems, this can be a bug of the BIOS
>not telling the right boot device to the bootcode. I observed
>that with an older Phoenix BIOS.
>You can either hardwire the boot device 0x80 in the boot code
>or use a boot selector.

After installing os-bs135, and setting partition 3 to be the boot partition,
os-bs attempts to boot that partition, appparently fails, and keeps attempting
in an infinite loop.

Bad disk?  It was previously used to boot Win95 and Win3.1 for years.

Here's the disktab generated by the install script:

WD730|NetBSD installation generated:\
        :dt=ST506:ty=winchester:\
        :nc#1416:ns#63:nt#16:\
        :se#512:\
        :pa#1242864:oa#0:ta=4.2BSD:ba#8192:fa#1024:\
        :pb#184464:ob#1242864:tb=swap:\
        :pc#1427328:oc#0:\
        :pd#1427328:od#0: