Ken Harrenstien <klh@us.oracle.com> writes:
> My only remaining problem, and I hesitate to bring this up here because
> (apart from revealing more of my ignorance) I'm not sure whether it's
> Deskpro-specific or not, is getting the BIOS to boot directly from the
> hard drive -- it complains about an invalid partition table.  I
> configured it at install time to be NetBSD-only and the NetBSD "fdisk"
> reports 3 empty partitions with the 4th actively used for NetBSD
> (entire disk except for the first track), with a valid BIOS geometry...


Perry Metzger replies:
>Hmmm.
>
>Try using fdisk(8) to completely re-initialize your MBR. With luck,
>you'll be okay.

But first, try re-running /usr/mdec/installboot and see if that fixes
your problem.


The netbsd-only was called `dangerously dedicated' for a reason: we
kept seeing reports of machines which wouldnt boot after a successful
install.  This is supposedly fixed in the latest bootblocks, though.

One possible cause is that your BIOS expects the entire first track
(possibly even first cylinder?) of the disk to be left free for a boot
manager. You could try booting the install disk, backing up your root
partition, editing the BSD disklabel to align the start of the
filesystem on your `a' partition to a track or cylinder boundary,
and unpacking the backup.

Re-writing re-writing the BIOS partition table in the MBR via fdisk
cant hurt, but since that's what sysinst uses, it should be okay.

If any of this sounds dangerous or unfamilar, I'd suggest
re-installing with a non-dedicated disk and seeing if that boots
cleanly.