Re: Regarding the boot process.

[Riza Dindir <riza.dindir%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello,

On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 8:02 PM Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> wrote:
>
>
> Riza Dindir <riza.dindir%gmail.com@localhost> writes:
>
> >> Riza Dindir <riza.dindir%gmail.com@localhost> writes:
> >>
> >> > I try to use NetBSD from a "HDD caddy" which i installed on my laptop
> >> > in place of my DVD drive. When i try to boot the OS (NetBSD), it
> >> > prints out a string "mem [0x000000-0x000001 0xaaaa-0xbbb ...]" and
> >> > stops there. No boot menu, nothing.
> >> >
> >> > At what stage in the boot process is this string shown?
> >>
> >> That may be from the BIOS.
> >>
> >> What exactly are you doing when you "try to boot NetBSD"?
> >
> > I am choosing the HDD in the caddy, from the bios boot menu.
>
> I am guessing this is wd1, or the second disk drive, from the BIOS point
> of view?

Yes. When the internal disk (win10) is installed, this is seen as the
second disk by the BIOS.

>
> >> Is there an internal HD and what's on it?
> >
> > The internal HDD has windows 10 on it. I do not want to loose that, in
> > case i need to get back to windows, for video conferencing apps, etc
> > that are not supported yet on NetBSD.
>
> That makes sense - I am just trying to understand the overall layout as
> the boot process has a lot of steps.

I could not figure out where in the boot process the loading of the
system fails.

>
> >> If you put a different OS on the HD and boot the same way, does it boot?
> >
> > I did not try putting a different OS on the HDD in the caddy.
> >
> > What i tried though is this. I have removed the internal HDD (that
> > contains Win10) from the system and put the NetBSD disk in its place.
> > This booted NetBSD.
> >
> > I also put the NetBSD disk into the caddy, but no internal HDD, NetBSD
> > booted without problems.
>
> I am guessing that with the windows disk removed, the NetBSD disk,
> whether in the internal slot or the DVD slot is the first disk, from the
> BIOS viewpoint?

Correct.

>
> > What i would like is to keep the internal disk, but have the system
> > boot from the caddy.
>
> Yes, that's a totally reasonable thing to want to do.
>
> >> Does your laptop use UEFI or BIOS booting?
> >
> > I am using UEFI (no secure boot at the moment). The NetBSD disk also
> > has the UEFI partition (128MB) that contains the bootx64.efi, and
> > another *.efi file.
> > The NetBSD disk has the root partition, the swap, partitions as well.
>
> I have mostly (all?) older systems and am not that familiar with UEFI.
> But in general with booting, the BIOS loads one thing, and that loads
> the next thing, and so on, until the kernel is running.  Usually there
> are schemes to pass information about which disk is the boot disk from
> one stage to the next.  A lot can go wrong.
>
> I am guessing that the information that the boot disk is the second HD
> is getting lost somewhere along the way.
>
> Did you create this netbsd HD by using the installer from CD/DVD?  Are
> you using 9.2/amd64?  Something else?

I created the NetBSD disk from a CD/DVD. I am using NetBSD 9.2/amd64
and used the corresponding CD ISO. I had the disk in the caddy when
installing, and booted the CD from a USB enclosure, where i installed
my DVD. The installation went fine. But i could not boot the system,
so i used a USB3 enclosure that i had lying around at home. Currently
i am using the system using a USB3 enclosure for now. But trying to
make the HDD caddy work.

Riza