[9fans] Newbie Install Question

[Kevin McQuiggin mcquiggi@sfu.ca]

Hi All:

I'm giving Plan 9 a try from the most recent diskettes at Bell Labs. My
target machine is a Pentium 133 with 32 MB RAM and onboard I/O. I don't
recall the brand but it works fine with FreeBSD 2.2.2.

I am using a single 50 MB HD for the trial. I repartitioned it into a
single 5 MB DOS partition, to hold just COMMAND.COM etc and the \PLAN9
directory. The other 45 MB is unallocated (no partition created). The
DOS partition was formatted and had just IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and
COMMAND.COM on it.

When I run B, it whirls for a bit and then on the "system configuration"
screen informs me that it cannot find an MBR or FAT partition on which
to install the distribution. The MBR is there (the box booted on it) and
as indicated there's 45 MB free for allocation.

I played with reconfiguration of the IDE controller choosing secondary
etc, but no difference. I also checked the FAQ and other web resources,
no luck. Hence my posting.

Any suggestions?

I suppose I could try disabling the onboard disk controller and using an
outboard IDE board. Any point?

I've tried creating an extended DOS partition of 45 MB, as expected this
did not work either.

I'm hoping to get a box or two running for experimentation. Any help
would be appreciated!

Kevin
mcquiggi@sfu.ca