Fabian Heusser wrote: > Hello > > I have an old box (3.6) which makes a lot of noise, so i like to > virtualize it. I made an Image with acronis and converted it with > vmware converter. > When i start the virtual machine "Loading... ERR M" is shown. (dmesg > at the bottom) > > I loaded cd36.iso as cdrom and at the boot prompt tried the following: > >> machine boot hd0b -> ERR M
I'm surprised you get THAT error, but it is a nonsense command. >> boot hd0a:/bsd -> Invalid argument failed(22). will try /bsd > also with hd0b, hd0c um. did you really think that /bsd might be on the b, c, or d partitions?? > if i boot with the cd, select shell and run the following > # mount /dev/sd0c /mnt > i get "Inappropriate filetype or format". also with /dev/sd0a - d I'd *hope* you can't mount sd0c like that. > If i run > # cp /usr/mdec/boot /boot > # /usr/mdec/installboot -v /boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd0 > i get the following output: > -----------------8<---------------------- > boot: /boot > proto: /usr/mdec/biosboot > device: /dev/rsd0c > /usr/mdec/biosboot: entry point 0 > proto bootblock size 512 > installboot: cross-device install > -----------------8<---------------------- > but the error persists. You couldn't read the file system, so you figured you would just run a utility to alter a random sector someplace on the disk. Did you notice the little error message? "cross-device install"??? Read the man page, read the FAQ, and think about that command. > Does anyone have an idea what i'm doing wrong? Almost everything so far. You can't just type random commands without understanding what you are saying to the computer. What you are doing is very, very dangerous. If you want to get some idea what went wrong, boot a CD, and do a disklabel sd0 and fdisk sd0, see what that tells you. There was obviously something that went very wrong with your imaging transfer process, which doesn't surprise me, the process of migrating OpenBSD is so simple, it is hard to get anyone worried about making a special tool, 'specially since it wouldn't have this kind of flexibility. Quit using special tools, and use the OS. SIMPLE way: dump(8) each existing partition to a file, move the file, then restore(8) the files to the partitions of the new disk. Install your boot loader (PROPERLY this time), and done. And YES, I am being deliberately vague about how to do this. You need to spend some time with the man pages and the FAQ and thinking about how things work, not magic commands to type. The PROPER way of doing this, however, being this is a many year old, unmaintained install, is to build a new 4.2 or 4.3 system, install the apps, and transfer the data files. I'm guessing it is a screwed up system, or it would have been properly maintained and be running 4.2 now. So, why would you want to blindly migrate a mess to new hardware? Nick.
