Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!jarthur!ucivax!bvickers
From: bvickers@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: PC Minix won't boot
Message-ID: <277AABA3.17656@ics.uci.edu>
Date: 28 Dec 90 02:19:15 GMT
References: <17634@imagen.UUCP>
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Distribution: usa
Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS
Lines: 37
Nntp-Posting-Host: bonnie.ics.uci.edu

Well I just unpacked Minix 1.5 and tried to get it to boot on my
386SX, but none of the three disks would boot.  I ordered Minix on
5.25" 360k floppies.

Here is a list of my relevant hardware:

x 386SX clone
x 1.2Meg floppy drive (floppy drive 0)
x 1.44Meg floppy drive (floppy drive 1)
x SCSI 205meg Conner hard drive
x Future domain SCSI controller card onto which I hook up my
  floppy drives and hard disk

The first time I tried booting with Boot Disk #2, and I got the
standard "Read error. Rebooting." message.  But ever since then
I have not seen that error.  Instead, when I boot off of any of
the three floppies, the computer just looks at them and then proceeds
to boot MS-DOS from my hard drive.

I've also tried unhooking the hard drive and booting all three boot
disks, but each time I get BOOT DISK FAILURE.

Is this happening because I am trying to boot 360k disks off of a
1.2Meg floppy?  In MS-DOS I can read 360k disks from the 1.2Meg,
but that may not be the case with Minix.  If this is indeed the
problem, what is the solution?

I'm a little disappointed with the documentation -- especially the
Troubleshooting section.  It's so bare and nebulous that it's really
of little use at all.

Brett Vickers (bvickers@ics.uci.edu)
--
bvickers@ics.uci.edu |       "We cannot decide whether that which
brett@ucippro.bitnet |        we call truth is really truth or
_____________________|        whether it merely appears that way
                              to us."      - Heinrich von Kleist