kyle wrote: > Hi all, > > Im running into a (silly) problem where I am seem not to be writing the boot > install images properly to a compact flash card. Ive been trying > cdrom38.fsand > floppy38.fs. I write the image under linux to the compact flash(seen as hde > device) as so: > > cat floppy38.fs > /dev/hde > > or: > > dd if=floppy38.fs of=/dev/hde bs=512 > > But, whenever I boot off of the compactflash I get the: > > "ERR R" error when it tries to load.
yep. > I read up that that message is due to disk geometry not seen properly by the > BIOS..But, not sure how to work around it. uh..you are trying to treat a floppy disk image like a hard disk. Bad plan. :) > If I boot a linux boot image on the flash, it works w/o issue(example > bootnet.img from older redhat distros). "this isn't Linux" :) "bootnet.img" doesn't sound like a floppy image, anyway. (ok, a bit of googling seems to indicate that it is.) > Now, this is pretty much my only install option(via compactflash). PXE > timesout(the arp timeout issue, on older intel eepro), and I dont have any > ide ports(this machine is a nokia ip650 and no onboard eide, it's all > compactpci). It does have a floppy controller, but I of course dont have the > correct floppy drive for it..heh. So, compactflash is my only option(or, if > someone can recommend a way to bootstrap via a linux install on the box). There are several things you could do. Dumping a floppy image to a hard-disk-like device is not one of them. 1: Get a CF -> IDE adapter, plug it into another computer, install OpenBSD on that system to the flash device, move to the ip650. Reconfigure. 2: mount the CF on another OpenBSD machine (anyway you can -- IDE->CF adapter, USB adapter, PCMCIA adapter, whatever). fdisk the CF, do a "reinit" from within fdisk to make sure it has a valid MBR. Disklabel it, create a small "a" partition. newfs the "a" partition, copy over bsd.rd and boot to the "a" partition (maybe rename bsd.rd to bsd at this point). Do an installboot. Move CF to target machine, if you did everything right, it should boot, if you didn't rename "bsd.rd" to "bsd", you will need to manually do a "boot bsd.rd" when the boot> prompt comes up, install. For extra credit, do this from the boot media, without actually having OpenBSD installed on the machine you are doing the config on -- should be possible. I'd suggest option #1, esp. if you needed more advice than "create a bootable disk on another machine", or wish I had provided more detail. However, you would need a IDE to CF adapter, and they aren't the easiest thing to buy at the corner electronics store, and you may be miffed by the lack of utility after this one use. Option #2 is only for those willing to re-try things a few times until they get it right -- I doubt I'd do all the steps right the first time...but then, there is a reason I'm not into sky-diving. :) > Anyway, can someone give me a pointer on what I am doing incorrectly? I > definitely would love to get openbsd on these boxes and not linux(I have a > couple w/ linux on them already, but I only installed linux on them since > Ive been running into this problem w/ openbsd). It is certainly doable. I've installed OpenBSD to a number of machines without floppy or CDROMs It does take a little help from another machine, however. Nick.
