Bug 14256

Summary: System doesn't boot under FreeBSD 3.2
Product: Base System Reporter: alrx <alrx>
Component: i386Assignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Only Me    
Priority: Normal    
Version: Unspecified   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   

Description alrx 1999-10-11 06:00:01 UTC 
I installed FreeBSD in a 4.1 gig partition of a dual pentium III.
This partition is the 4th. of a 15gig IDE HD.
Booting from floppy and installing presented no problem. The machine is running BeOS 4.5.1 on the frist partition, with a multiple system booter called bootman provided by Be. I can see the FreeBSD partition, I can select it, but the message:
"read error" appears.
I've installed FreeBSD 3 times, last changing the MBR to standard instead of none

How-To-Repeat: just under same conditions
Comment 1 tedm 2000-01-12 08:58:36 UTC 
The boot loader must access the /kernel using BIOS code.  It's
likely that your 15GB IDE disk is simply too large.  There are
several BIOS limitations at 500MB, and 8GB that have been hacked
around over the years by BIOS manufacturers.

Please obtain a scratch small IDE disk (500MB or so) and temporairly
disconnect your 15GB disk and plug in the small IDE disk, and attempt
a FreeBSD installation on it.  If this DOES NOT work then this problem
needs further investigation, please supply the make, model and year of your
machine.

If it DOES work then you might be able to get FreeBSD installed if you can
create a small (50MB or so) partition under the 8GB boundary on your 15GB
hard disk, install the root filesystem here, then you should be able to
install the rest of the system elsewhere.  Of course you need a partition
manager to do this.

Another possibility is installing an arbitrary small disk as your second
IDE disk, and loading the FreeBSD root and /usr on here, then mount the
rest of your 15GB IDE disk somewhere.

You might also investigate if there is a BIOS upgrade for your motherboard.

You might also think about investigating the use of large SCSI disks,
instead of
large IDE disks.  SCSI disks on good controllers generally don't have this
kind
of problem, as the SCSI controllers BIOS understands how to reach any part
of
the disk.

Ted
Comment 2 Kris Kennaway freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2001-05-24 20:24:12 UTC 
State Changed
From-To: open->closed

Feedback timeout, and probable BIOS problem, not FreeBSD problem.