Odd, I didn't know this. On the Apple PPC machines, OpenFirmware was limited to 128G for the B&W G3. Later, the limit was extended. You're right, the limitation is stupid.
--- On Sat, 3/26/11, Kenneth R Westerback <kwesterb...@rogers.com> wrote: From: Kenneth R Westerback <kwesterb...@rogers.com> Subject: Re: Messed up OpenBSD boot after dualbooting via grub - cannot boot without OpenBSD boot CD. To: "Amarendra Godbole" <amarendra.godb...@gmail.com> Cc: "misc" <misc@openbsd.org> Date: Saturday, March 26, 2011, 8:12 PM On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 11:28:32PM +0530, Amarendra Godbole wrote: > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Kenneth R Westerback > <kwesterb...@rogers.com> wrote: > > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 05:26:06PM +0530, Amarendra Godbole wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> I have run into a deadend trying to understand, and troubleshoot this > >> problem. Hence, I would like some pointers. Following is what I did to > >> get my OpenBSD system running, and then subsequently messing it up (in > >> sequence): > >> > >> (1) Installed OpenBSD/i386 on my Thinkpad X201, and built -current. > >> Did reserve ~140G for Windows, and then installed OpenBSD as described > > > > ^^^^ OpenBSD will reliably boot only if located <128GB. A > > recent change has made this explicit until a more reliable > > way of booting from >128GB can be found. > > > >> in FAQ. Things were fine for a couple of months. > >> > [...] > >> (4) grub started fine, and Windows XP boots fine, but when I try to > >> boot OpenBSD, I get something like this: > >> Loading... > >> probing: <<additional details>> > >> disk: fd0 hd0+* > >> >> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.13 > >> open(hd0a:/etc/boot.conf): Invalid argument > >> boot> > >> booting hd0a:/bsd: open hd0a:/bsd: Invalid argument > >> failed(22). will try ... > >> > >> And OpenBSD never boots. I don't recall changing anything else. From > >> what I know (very little), biosboot was able to load the 2nd stage > >> bootloader, but it now failed loading the kernel image. > >> > >> I can boot successfully into OpenBSD using a 4.8 boot CD though. I > >> tried running installboot again (mindlessly!), and get this error: > >> -------------------------- > >> OpenBSD_49$ sudo /usr/mdec/installboot -n -v /boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd0 > >> Password: > >> boot: /boot proto: /usr/mdec/biosboot device: /dev/rsd0c > >> /boot is 3 blocks x 16384 bytes > >> fs block shift 2; part offset 293603940; inode block 32, offset 10792 > >> master boot record (MBR) at sector 0 > >> partition 0: type 0x07 offset 63 size 293603877 > >> partition 1: type 0xA6 offset 293603940 size 377487360 > >> installboot: invalid location: all of /boot must be < sector 268435455. > > > > And here is the error now being generated. If you have a BIOS/Hardware > > combo that can actually boot from >128GB, you can recompile installboot > > and friends after changing the value of BIOSBOOT_MAXSEC in > sys/sys/disklabel.h. > > Okay, so I changed BOOTBIOS_MAXSEC and got installboot to work fine. > Nothing seems to have changed though, as I still run into the "booting > hd0a:/bsd: open hd0a:/bsd: Invalid argument failed(22). will try..." > error message at boot>. You need to compile 'and friends', in particular a new /boot. And install it. This is done by cd /usr/src/sys/arch/[1386|amd64]/stand make clean make obj make make install /usr/mdec/installboot -v /boot /usr/mdec/biosboot all as root of course. > > What surprises me is OpenBSD booted fine *before* I had Windows XP, > and the ~143G partition was still present. Possibly something else is > broken... Nope. We introduced a hard limit of 128GB as the workable lowest common denominator while we research a reliable way to determine when it is safe to go beyond. On one of my recent machines, just to pick an example, the BIOS simply returns all zero's for all I/O attempted past 128GB. We do like to impose draconian new restrictions and debug code early in a release cycle. :-) The lack of a reliable way to safely go beyond 128GB, even with recent BIOSen is sad and no doubt the reason Windows wants the first 100MB or so for its boot, OpenSUSE 11.4 blew up when installed >128GB on a just purchased motherboard, etc. The second target for anyone with a time machine should be the morons who decided BIOS would be enough for anyone. > > "makeactive" in menu.lst for grub did not help either (as I had guessed). > > -Amarendra > [...] > All grub can do (to my knowledge) is grab and run the OpenBSD /boot program. And if it doesn't work ... .... Ken
