Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!mcdchg!laidbak!botton From: botton@i88.isc.com (Brian D. Botton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1 Subject: Re: Different boot problem... Keywords: 3b1 boot Message-ID: <1991Mar1.045750.19952@i88.isc.com> Date: 1 Mar 91 04:57:50 GMT References: <12744@helios.TAMU.EDU> Sender: usenet@i88.isc.com (Usenet News) Distribution: comp Organization: INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation, Naperville, IL Lines: 33 Nntp-Posting-Host: laitnite.i88.isc.com In article <12744@helios.TAMU.EDU> n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu (Brent Burton) writes: Lots of stuff skipped over. >What do the marching boxes mean ... The story of the marching boxes is this: After the boot ROM initializes the hardware it jumps to an infinate loop and draws the first square. It then tries to boot from the floppy. If it cannot, it tries to boot from the hard disk. If it cannot, it goes back to trying the floppy. Each time it starts the loop over it draws a new square. The floppy's LED stays on because it gets "select"ed at the beginning of the infinate loop and thus says on. When the loader is finally loaded into RAM, both the floppy and hard disk are "deselect"ed. BTW, if you look in /usr/include/sys/machine.m you will see that there are 3 disk types, winchester (HD), floppy (FD) and syquest (SY). It is fairly obvious from the boot ROM and loader code that support for more than the HD and FD was intended and easy to add. Does anyone know what a "syquest" is? > and why doesn't it see the hard drive to start >loading? I have two sets of disk cables and both sets result in intermittant >boots. The hard disk must go into a ready state before it can be accessed. Is the circuit card on the hard disk shorting to the cabinet when all the screws are tight? Look for cables that are being stretched or something shorting the hard disk. -- ... ___ *** _][_n_n___i_i ________ ******* Brian D. Botton (____________I_I______I_I_______I laidbak!botton or /ooOOOO OOOOoo oo oooo oo oo laidbak!bilbo!brian