On 4 May 2014 14:47, Andreas Bartelt <[email protected]> wrote: > On 05/03/14 20:22, Kenneth Westerback wrote: >> >> On 3 May 2014 10:13, Andreas Bartelt <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> On 05/03/14 15:01, Kenneth Westerback wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 3 May 2014 08:49, Andreas Bartelt <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 05/03/14 14:10, Kenneth Westerback wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 3 May 2014 06:27, Martijn Rijkeboer <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> So marking a partition as 'Active/Bootable', (the 00 -> 80 change) >>>>>>>> causes your system to hang. Apparently Linux does this when you >>>>>>>> 'Label' it. The OpenBSD installer does it for you when you >>>>>>>> select 'Whole disk'. Nothing obviously to do with the disklabel. You >>>>>>>> could test this by manually >>>>>>>> setting the 'Active' flag on the working Linux MBR. Or, conversely >>>>>>>> unsetting the flag with fdisk >>>>>>>> after the OpenBSD install but before rebooting. In either case does >>>>>>>> it >>>>>>>> get further before noticing that it can't boot? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I did some testing with the following results: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 1. Partition disk with Linux gparted and use cfdisk to set partition >>>>>>> type to A6 and OpenBSD disklabel to set disklabel. >>>>>>> (partition: 0; start: 2048; size: 1953519616) >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> boot >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> boot >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, with disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 2. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk + disklabel (installer start + >>>>>>> size). >>>>>>> (partition: 3, start: 64; size: 1953520001) >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, with diskalbel -> freeze >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 3. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk + disklabel (linux start + >>>>>>> size). >>>>>>> (partition: 3: start: 2048; size: 1953519616) >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> boot >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> boot >>>>>>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag on, with disklabel -> freeze >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 4. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk with type 83 (installer start + >>>>>>> size). >>>>>>> (partition: 3, start: 64; size: 1953520001) >>>>>>> - Bootflag off -> freeze >>>>>>> - Bootflag on -> freeze >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It looks like the motherboard doesn't like the partition to start at >>>>>>> 64 >>>>>>> and >>>>>>> it also doesn't like disklabels. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Any suggestions on what to try next or should I just buy a different >>>>>>> motherboard? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Kind regards, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Martijn Rijkeboer >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Looking around I found that one of my machines has a gigabyte >>>>>> GA-Z87-D3HP board, and I scrounged up a 1TB WD 10EARS disk. The disk >>>>>> was from another machine and had a working OpenBSD system. Lo and >>>>>> behold, plugged it into the GA-Z87-D3HP board and the system hung in >>>>>> the POST. Put the disk back on the other system, dd'ed /dev/zero over >>>>>> the disklabel, moved it back and the system booted. >>>>>> >>>>>> How extremely interesting. And weird. >>>>>> >>>>>> .... Ken >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> such problems also seem to occur on some ASUS boards -- but only when >>>>> SATA >>>>> drives are used. OpenBSD did boot fine from a USB stick: >>>>> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=137862502730004&w=2 >>>>> >>>>> Best Regards >>>>> Andreas >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Indeed. Experiments here show that plugging in a pci <-> sata card to >>>> avoid the Intel SATA chip makes the disk work fine. >>>> >>>> Disks smaller than 1TB also work. So I'm guessing it's something >>>> magical about 4K-sector disks presenting themselves as 512-byte sector >>>> disks that is the source of problems. I'm still a bit fogged as to how >>>> a disklabel triggers the problem. >>>> >>> >>> I also saw these problems with a Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB SSD drive. I don't >>> know which sector size these drives use internally... >>> >>> Actually, I didn't get any of my drives to work with OpenBSD on this >>> mainboard. I don't know if it helps -- I've also unsuccessfully tested a >>> 320GB WD3200AAKS from 08/2010. >>> >>> Best Regards >>> Andreas >> >> >> OK, I got it booting. In a fairly useless config, but ... >> >> Booting from a -current amd64 cd55.iso cd-rom, I (E)dited the MBR so >> that the OpenBSD 'A6' partition started on sector 2048, and was 500MB >> in size. >> >> I accepted the auto configured disklabel (i.e. all space in 'a') and >> installed w/o X, Compiler or games sets. >> >> Removing the CD and rebooting got me to the usual login prompt. >> >> I'm going to experiment some more, but I'm now suspicious that the old >> '512MB' limit is coming into play somehow. >> >> So for those following along, try a tiny OpenBSD MBR partition >> starting at sector 2048 and see what happens. And of course if it >> works, how big can your partition be before it stops working. >> > > I've just tried this -- starting the A6 partition (partition 3) at sector > 2048 prevented POST from freezing. However, the system didn't boot in my > case. > > Afterwards, I did the same manual partitioning setup (A6, partition 3, 500m, > flagged as bootable), but with starting sector 64 instead, which resulted in > POST freezing again. > > Best Regards > Andreas >
Indeed. Further experimentation on my part only showed non-reproducible results. There is more here than I can grasp. Somebody with a deeper knowledge of BIOS and some hardware tools to watch what's actually going on needs to be found. .... Ken
