hogo hogo wrote: > I have got a problem during OpenBSD 4.2 installation. > I install on a QEMU virtual machine on a hard disk with 7000M of size. > In the end of installation process when the system writes MBR onto the disk > I get such a message: > > Installing boot block... > boot: /mnt/boot > proto: /usr/mdec/biosboot > device: /dev/rwd0c > /usr/mdec/biosboot: entry point 0 > proto bootblock size 512 > /mnt/boot is 3 blocks x 16384 bytes > fs block shift 2; part offset 63; inode block 24, offset 1704 > installboot: broken MBR > done > > I hope you could help me solve this problem, I assume it is 99% sure my > mistake, but I followed the installation process as I made in OpenBSD 4.1 > everything went ok, but in 4.2 version I got such a mistake. I really hope u > will help me solve that problem. > > Best regards, Aleksandr.
That means that whatever is on your disk where the MBR is, it doesn't appear to be an MBR A few common problems: 1) no offset for the OpenBSD partition. You have to have a one-track (often, but not always, 63 sectors) offset for your OpenBSD partition. If you use a starting offset of zero, your disklabel clobbers your fdisk partition table (which happens to be sitting at sector zero). 2) Forgetting to actually install a valid boot record. If your drive was used before on an i386 machine, it probably has a valid boot record, but if is a new disk, it most likely does not. Since you are using QEMU, it most likely counts as a "new disk". Make sure you either answer "y" to the "Use entire disk" or "Reinit" the drive in fdisk to put down a valid MBR before. I'm not sure if #2 will give you that message, I do believe error #1 will. Nick.
