Brian Candler wrote: > On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 04:18:53PM -0800, K WESTERBACK wrote: >> I've booted OpenBSD from above cylinder 1024 (at least >8G) as far as I >> recall. However you *cannot* boot it from an extended partition w/o >> assistance of some kind. It's unclear from your email if this is what you >> attempted or not. Extended partition booting is an area of interest >> without firm target dates as yet. > > It's a primary partition in both cases. > > Machine 1: HP/Compaq desktop. I'm not in front of it right now; from memory > I think it's a model 2100. It's a 2.8GHz P4, so not too ancient. > > # fdisk wd0 > Disk: wd0 geometry: 4865/255/63 [78156225 Sectors] > Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55 > Starting Ending LBA Info: > #: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ] > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > 0: A5 0 1 1 - 2609 254 63 [ 63: 41929587 ] FreeBSD > *1: A6 2610 0 1 - 4864 254 63 [ 41929650: 36226575 ] OpenBSD > 2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused > 3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused > > #0 is FreeBSD 6.1, #1 is OpenBSD 4.0. I created the OpenBSD partition using > openbsd's fdisk. > > The MBR contains the FreeBSD bootloader. At startup, the machine displays
HA! > F1 FreeBSD > F2 BSD > > But when I press F2 I just get a beep. which proves conclusively that I was right, it isn't an OpenBSD problem, as you clearly didn't load the PBR. FreeBSD bumbling the load doesn't define an OpenBSD problem. Put the OpenBSD MBR in place, and it will load fine. > I boot this machine using cd40.iso > and typing "boot hd0a:/bsd" > > Machine 2: Dell X1 laptop > > My apologies, this was a false alarm. It turns out this *does* boot into > OpenBSD when I edit /etc/grub.conf appropriately. ... > > So maybe the problem with the desktop is an old BIOS, unlikely, or nothing that isn't custom written for the machine is likely to boot it > or a problem with > FreeBSD's bootloader. pretty clear from the previous example. > As for why I thought that OpenBSD wouldn't boot above cylinder 1024, I > googled around and found a number of (probably old) documents about > dual-booting OpenBSD saying this was a problem(*). yeah, the second one was even (supposedly) written for 3.6, which was a full release after the 8G boundaries were eliminated. > I would have taken these > with a pinch of salt, but the file INSTALL.i386 supplied with OpenBSD 4.0 > also says: > "you MUST > BE SURE that all partitions which you want to boot from must start and end > below cylinder 1024 by the BIOS's idea of the disk, and that all DOS > partitions MUST EXIST ENTIRELY BELOW cylinder 1024, or you will either not > be able to boot OpenBSD, not be able to boot DOS, or you may experience > data loss or filesystem corruption." That's an oops. That's a big oops. That gives me something to do this evening... Nick.
