Jeremy,

Have you tried clearing the main boot sector? For
example with a dos boot disk: "fdisk /mbr"
Then boot with the cdrom into netbsd. Reactivate the
NetBSD partion by "fdisk -a" 

Then it will set the NetBSD partion as active, and
hopefully it should boot.

I have had this problem when I  remove Linux, because
the Lilo boot manager messes it up.


Morten



--- "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote:
> I think we need a FAQ about this. I have read about
> it many times, but
> don't always understand this.
> 
> Here's my problem today: A big scsi drive isn't
> bootable ("os not found").
> 
> This system was installed by someone else and I am a
> thousand miles away.
> 
> # egrep -i 'scsi|siop|sd0' /var/run/dmesg.boot
> siop0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: Symbios Logic
> 53c875 (ultra-wide scsi)
> siop0: using on-board RAM
> siop0: interrupting at irq 10
> scsibus0 at siop0: 16 targets, 8 luns per target
> scsibus0: waiting 2 seconds for devices to settle...
> siop0: target 0 using tagged queuing
> sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: <, , > SCSI2
> 0/direct fixed
> siop0: target 0 using 16bit transfers
> siop0: target 0 now synchronous at 20.0Mhz, offset
> 16
> sd0: 57272 MB, 57272 cyl, 32 head, 64 sec, 512
> bytes/sect x 117293056 sectors
> boot device: sd0
> root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
> 
> It boots fine when using a CD's boot loader and
> using "boot sd0a:netbsd".
> 
> The drive is some 60GB raid device. It appears as
> one disk. The same drive
> the day before was bootable with Red Hat Linux.
> 
> fdisk says:
> # fdisk sd0
> NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
> cylinders: 57272 heads: 32 sectors/track: 64 (2048
> sectors/cylinder)
> 
> BIOS disk geometry:
> cylinders: 1024 heads: 255 sectors/track: 63 (16065
> sectors/cylinder)
> 
> Partition table:
> 0: <UNUSED>
> 1: <UNUSED>
> 2: <UNUSED>
> 3: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
>     start 64, size 117292992 (57271 MB), flag 0x80
>         beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
>         end: cylinder  951, head  31, sector  0
> 
> disklabel says:
> # disklabel sd0
> # /dev/rsd0d:
> type: unknown
> disk: ocsmail
> label:
> flags:
> bytes/sector: 512
> sectors/track: 64
> tracks/cylinder: 32
> sectors/cylinder: 2048
> cylinders: 57272
> total sectors: 117293056
> rpm: 3600
> interleave: 1
> trackskew: 0
> cylinderskew: 0
> headswitch: 0           # microseconds
> track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
> drivedata: 0
> 
> 8 partitions:
> #        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize
> cpg/sgs]
>   a:  2047936       64     4.2BSD     1024  8192   
> 16   # (Cyl.    0*- 999)
>   b:  2048000  2048000       swap                   
>     # (Cyl. 1000 - 1999)
>   c: 117292992       64     unused        0     0   
>      # (Cyl.    0*- 57271)
>   d: 117293056        0     unused        0     0   
>      # (Cyl.    0 - 57271)
>   e: 10240000  4096000     4.2BSD     1024  8192   
> 16   # (Cyl. 2000 - 6999)
>   f: 20480000 14336000     4.2BSD     1024  8192   
> 16   # (Cyl. 7000 - 16999)
>   g: 82477056 34816000     4.2BSD     1024  8192   
> 16   # (Cyl. 17000 - 57271)
> 
> I did "fdisk -i" to try initializing mbr, but no go.
> 
> Also, tried "installboot -f /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym
> /dev/sd0a".
> 
> I am running sysinst to see what it says:
> 
>  BIOS # cylinders  heads   sectors
>  ------ ---------- ------- -------
>  0      1024       255     63
> 
> The installer chose "set by hand":
> cylinders: 57272
> heads: 32
> sectors: 64
> 
> (He said these were the same as used under Red Hat.)
> 
> Now, I see that sysinst says: "If you have the BIOS
> set up to use > 1024
> cylinders just truncate that number to 1024 here."
> So he should have set
> it to "1024".
> 
> I don't know if the sysinst complained about making
> it bootable.
> 
> On his Linux system, it is like:
> SCSI device sda: 117293056 512-byte hdwr sectors
> (60054 MB)
> 
> And the fdisk warns about the cylinders.
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 57272 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes
> 
> And the Linux lilo and kernel is on:
>    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id 
> System
> /dev/sda1   *         1      1000   1023984   83 
> Linux
> 
> 
> I find it strange that the "offset" (under NetBSD)
> is 64.
> 
> Also, I wonder why it is 57272 MB instead of 60054
> MB.
> 
> Can I change the geometry while it is live without
> reinstalling?
> 
> Or any other ideas to make it bootable?
> 
> Thanks for any advice or suggestions.
> 
>    Jeremy C. Reed
>    http://bsd.reedmedia.net/
> 


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