On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 09:57:10PM -0400, Nick Holland wrote: > If your description is accurate, no. > OpenBSD isn't loading -- you say you hang at the BIOS screen. Can't be > an OS flaw if the OS isn't loading. > > HOWEVER, it may well be an OpenBSD MBR issue, where the BIOS is looking > for a Microsoft (and maybe some Linux was tested too) boot loader, and > choking over something it is seeing. > > If so (and it sure sounds like it is), it is clearly a BIOS problem, as > it shouldn't be doing that, no matter what is in the MBR. The only > question in my mind is if that's true, how'd you do the install? A: you > PXE booted it (yay dmesg!), which doesn't involve an MBR code, so I'm > still good with my theory. > > Good news, you don't HAVE to use OpenBSD's MBR. > > Put a standard MS MBR on your flash drive, hard drive, or SSD. How you > do this is between you and your tools at hand -- I'd probably use a > windows 98 boot floppy or CD. You could also try FreeDOS or similar. > > When you install OpenBSD, don't do the "use entire disk" option, > manually enter fdisk, create your partition, make it OpenBSD type, flag > it as active, continue on with the install. (or boot an DOS/win9x OS on > the machine and do a "FDISK /MBR" to load the MS MBR on the disk after > install -- this would fix what is on the disk now, assuming your bios is > convinced it is broken). > > Another wild guess is maybe this BIOS doesn't like the OpenBSD "start at > sector 64" default, standard used to be 63, maybe this bios didn't get > the message that 4k disks work better starting at a 4k boundary. If the > above suggestion doesn't work, try manually creating your fdisk > partitions starting at sector 63 (this would also be clearly a BIOS bug). > > Oh. Maybe I should suggest starting with "check for updated BIOS" first. :) > > Nick.
This would be a handy addition to the FAQ. It seems a lot of newer UEFI boards are shipping with buggy, sometimes even broken legacy boot support. :-( On 09/23/14 11:55, ML mail wrote: > I am trying in vain to install OpenBSD 5.5 (amd64) on a Nexcom NSA > 5150 network appliance but as soon as I have installed it the system > does not boot. In fact it hangs at the AMI BIOS screen and does not > go further. I even need to disconnect/remove the storage in order to > get it back working (and access the BIOS again). Fortunately as Nick mentioned, *most* MBRs do the same thing, load the PBR/VBR from the first partition marked 'active'. It may be enough to place the OpenBSD partition at offset 4096 instead of the default of 64. It also wouldn't hurt to also change the entry # from 3 to 0 as is done by Windows. Perhaps it's trying to be clever parse the table itself. The MBR from FreeBSD or NetBSD might just appease your BIOS, you could do a minimal install and then answer 'n' when prompted by OpenBSD's installer. Again, as Nick described. -Bryan.
