On Fri, 12 May 2000, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> In message <200005121813.NAA02404@erato.webcombo.net>, wqiu@webcombo.net writes
> :
> >I set the HD to "NONE" in CMOS setting and it let me boot 
> >from the NetBSD CD. Then I "exit" from the NetBSD 
> >sysinstall. When I did "fdisk -i wd0", I got error message 
> >"fdisk: /dev/rwd0d: Device not configured"( I have only one 
> >HD). When I did "shutdown -r now" and tried to reboot from 
> >the CD, I got "Read err" and dead machine again even I did 
> >not add HD back in CMOS yet.
> >
> >I guess the "corrupted MBR" is the right direction to work 
> >at, we just have not got it right yet. Fredrick, could you 
> >give me some tips on how to "zero out the corrupted boot 
> >sector"?
> 
> The problem, I think, is that you told the BIOS you have no hard drive.
> The right thing is to say, instead, that you want to boot preferentially 
> from the CD-ROM before the hard drive.  Failing that, make a boot floppy
> and boot from it instead.

Sure, if it works. I've seen it that the mbr was so corrupted, it
wouldn't even boot from floppy, even though the floppy was listed
first. I fixed it by unplugging the power from the drive (to boot),
and powering it up only after starting the formatter utility. That
couldn't work in NetBSD, I think.