RE: impossible to boot after 'successful' install of 6.1.2 i386

["John Refling" <netbsdrat%gmail.com@localhost>]

I zeroed the ENTIRE hard disk before the install (using the
shell on the install CD with `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/wd0d bs=512',
takes overnight), then rebooted the install CD, did the install and now
machine booted NetBSD from hard disk correctly.  No other way for
me to get this machine to work!  5.2.1 did not have this problem.

Zeroing PART of the disk before install did not allow a successful
installation.  Not sure how much needs to be zeroed.

I can now do a successful re-install of 6.1.2 on the same disk, over
and over, once one install worked.

Not sure if I bump it down to 5.2.1 then up to 6.1.2 if have the same
problem.  Experiment on this another day.

Maybe some old disklabel is being carried over on the disk?

Hope this helps debug the problem.

John Refling



-----Original Message-----
From: John Refling [mailto:netbsdrat%gmail.com@localhost] 
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2013 4:29 AM
To: 'netbsd-users%NetBSD.org@localhost'
Subject: impossible to boot after 'successful' install of 6.1.2 i386

Impossible to boot after 'successful' install of 6.1.2

Using 6.1.2 i386 install CD and now have this problem on ALL my machines
(laptops, desktops, etc.), DELL, HP, etc.

This is a possible worsening of
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-bugs/2012/03/24/msg027356.html which was
re 6.0 Beta.  The problem there seemed to go away by zeroing the disk and
the disklabel a few times before booting the install CD.

So: the installation of 6.1.2 from the CD seems to go well, BUT:

Booting the disk after the CD install gives:

NetBSD MBR boot

NetBSD/x86 ffsv2 Primary Bootstrap

>> NetBSD/x86 BIOS Boot, Rev 5.9 (from NetBSD 6.1.2)

Press return to boot now, any other key to boot menu

booting hd0a:netbsd - starting in 0 seconds.

open netbsd: No such file or directory.

and the same for netbsd.gz, onetbsd, onetbsd.gz, etc...


> ls: No such file or directory
> dev
disk hd0 size 55 GB
  hd0a(unknown) hd0b(unknown) hd0c(unknown) hd0d(unknown) 

Can never get it to boot.

In the install, have tried, "use entire disk", and keep the defaults as
presented, have tried the multiple boot option "edit the MBR partition
table",
and changing the defaults (as per another user), nothing works.

There just seems no way to get 6.1.2 to work on any of my machines!

All worked with 5.2.1.  Had some issues like this with 6.0 beta, but could
eventually get it to work.  Seemed like zeroing the disk before the install
helped.

All these machines run/boot FreeBSD/OpenBSD/XP perfectly.

What I see has changed from 5.2.1 to 6.1.2 is using ffsv1 -> ffsv2.

Also, the starting sector for the boot partition used to be 63, and in 6.1.2
it is 2048.

how to repeat: 

install NetBSD 5.2.1, then 'upgrade' from a working 5.2.1 to 6.1.2, renders
machine unbootable.

John Refling

I *think* I got one machine to work by zeroing *ENTIRE* disk using dd.  I
always zero the first 100MB or so, and that did *NOT* help [using dd
if=/dev/zero of=/dev/wd0d.  Maybe should use /dev/rwd0d?]

Also, thought coming from a previously installed XP disk the NetBSD install
worked, but cannot confirm that.

Under NetBSD 5.2.1, this machine was main server for a year, now under 6.1.2
will not boot at all.

HELP!

THX