JVC MP-XP7210 Missing Operating System

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:59:12 +0200
> From: Axel Steiner <ast at treibsand.com>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> > A problem with the boot block is the most likely thing.
> > 
> > I assume that there were no errors during the install, but there is
> > little information on it, either, which leaves almost nothing to go on.
> > 
> > You should boot up the installation CD and run the live OS. You should
> > be able to look at the slices and partitions on your disk to see if they
> > are OK. ('fdisk ad0' and 'bsdlabel ad0') if FreeBSD is the only system
> > on the disk, you can also use the system to write a boot block to the
> > disk, (boot0cfg -B ad0)
> 
> The problem is, that I can't boot from CD. This notebook has no CD-ROM,
> I installed FreeBSD with USB-Floppy. An installation of 4.11 worked fine,
> 4.11 has detected the same geometry. Then I did an upgrade to 5.4. Now it
> works. I think 5.4 did not write correct boot blocks on my disk. Next time,
> when I expect this problem I give boot0cfg a try.

No CD? Ouch. That does make things a bit difficult.

Which sysinstall options did you use? Any of them should have asked you
about installing an MBR. If you have only FreeBSD on the disk, I'd
suggest just using the standard MBR and not the FreeBSD MBR.

You can also install a standard MBR with a DOS disk or get a FIXIT
floppy and use that to get a slim version of FreeBSD up so that you can
try to track down the problem. It will include boot0cfg. Or just use the
floppies to bring up sysinstall and select "Configure". Than you can
select "Fdisk" to verify the slices. Make sure that the FreeBSD slice is
flagged as bootable. If not, you have the option of setting it. When you
select the "Write changes" option, it will put up a warning about
sysinstall normally not wanting you to do a write, but you will not be
re-installing the OS, so you can write it.

When you exist Fdisk, you will get a request to define the MBR. If you
will have multiple OSes on the system, you probably want "BootMgr". If
FreeBSD is the only OS, select "Standard".

Then select "Label" to look at the partition table. This will only list
named and sizes, but it is something to check on.

Unless you modify the slices or partitions, these operations will not
cause the loss of any of the OS files on the disk. Neither will setting
the slice to bootable.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634