[9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[Alasdair Reed]

Hi, 

I have successfully (?) installed plan 9 from the Live/installation CD . 
However Bootsetup will not create a boot floppy. 
Afer inserting  a floppy in the drive and pressing 'enter' I get the following error message:

ls /dev/sd0/cdboot '/dev/sdD0' file does not exist
will not format non-floppy disk /dev/sdD0/cdboot

My CD drive is sdC1 (primary slave) . So I guess that Bootsetup is unable to find the source file it needs to create the floppy . 
Is this assessment of the problem correct? 
If so,
How do I let Bootsetup know where my CD drive is? 

Or if that is not possible, is there a way to create a boot floppy from the Live CD?
Or some other source for a boot floppy?

Thanks,

Regards,

Alasdair

Re: [9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[Navin Johnson]

On Dec 9, 2007 8:01 PM, Alasdair Reed <alasdair@iprimus.com.au> wrote:
>
> I have successfully (?) installed plan 9 from the Live/installation CD .
> However Bootsetup will not create a boot floppy.
> Afer inserting  a floppy in the drive and pressing 'enter' I get the following error message:
>
> ls /dev/sd0/cdboot '/dev/sdD0' file does not exist
> will not format non-floppy disk /dev/sdD0/cdboot
>
> My CD drive is sdC1 (primary slave) . So I guess that Bootsetup is unable to find the source file it needs to create the floppy .
> Is this assessment of the problem correct?

Yes.

> If so,
> How do I let Bootsetup know where my CD drive is?

It is hardcoded, so your current options are:
1) download and use a boot floppy from Bell Labs[1] site, or
2) move your CD to another IDE cable (i.e. primary master on another
cable) and go through the installation process again.

Regards,
Navin

[1] http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/download/plan9.flp.gz

Re: [9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[erik quanstrom]

> >
> > I have successfully (?) installed plan 9 from the Live/installation CD .
> > However Bootsetup will not create a boot floppy.
> > Afer inserting  a floppy in the drive and pressing 'enter' I get the following error message:
> >
> > ls /dev/sd0/cdboot '/dev/sdD0' file does not exist
> > will not format non-floppy disk /dev/sdD0/cdboot
> >
> > My CD drive is sdC1 (primary slave) . So I guess that Bootsetup is unable to find the source file it needs to create the floppy .
> > Is this assessment of the problem correct?
> 
> Yes.

i think the problem is a bit different. /sys/lib/dist/pc/inst/bootfloppy
appears to have been told that the floppy is /dev/sdD0/cdboot.  the
floppy is /dev/fd0disk.  in any event, i believe that plan 9 kernels with
venti/fossil are too large for a 1.44MB floppy:

	; 9fs sources; cd /n/sources/plan9/386
	; ls -l 9load 9pcf.gz|awk '{s+=$6}END{print s}'
	1567751

generally one boots from the 9fat partition instead.  the
livecd can also be used in case of emergency.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[Joshua Wood]

> It is hardcoded, so your current options are:
> 1) download and use a boot floppy from Bell Labs[1] site, or
> 2) move your CD to another IDE cable (i.e. primary master on another
> cable) and go through the installation process again.
>

Seems like there would be an option number:

3) Make a boot floppy, as discussed in update(8) and esp. the  
EXAMPLES subhead in prep(8).


>
> [1] http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/download/plan9.flp.gz


--
Josh

Re: [9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[Alasdair Reed]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 05:11:55AM -0800, Joshua Wood wrote:
> >It is hardcoded, so your current options are:
> >1) download and use a boot floppy from Bell Labs[1] site, or
> >2) move your CD to another IDE cable (i.e. primary master on another
> >cable) and go through the installation process again.
> >
> 
> Seems like there would be an option number:
> 
> 3) Make a boot floppy, as discussed in update(8) and esp. the  
> EXAMPLES subhead in prep(8).
> 
> 
> >
> >[1] http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/download/plan9.flp.gz
> 
> 
> --
> Josh
> 
>

Hi, CD drive is now sdD0, installed again but got the same error message on attempting to create boot floppy.

Downloaded plan9.flp.gz, on attempting to decompress got the following error:
gunzip: data stream error
gunzip: plan9.flp.gz: uncompress failed

this was uncompressing in NetBSD 

tried several more freshly downloaded files, all with same result. Tried Same on windows got "crc error"
Is the file on the server corrupt, or am I doing something wrong (again!).
" 3) Make a boot floppy, as discussed in update(8) and esp. the
 EXAMPLES subhead in prep(8)."
 
disk/format -b /386/pbs -df /dev/fd0disk \
/386/9load /tmp/plan9.ini /386/9pcf.gz

Returned the message:

add 9load at clust 2 
format:open /tmp/plan9.ini: '/tmp/plan9.ini' file does not exist

Not bad, half way there!! I guess the live CD doesn't place a copy of plan9.ini there ? Where do I find it to copy it to tmp? 

One last thing, perhaps I should have mentioned. Plan 9 (on the hard disk) is installed in the last 6 GB of a 40 GB disk, behind Windows XP on NTFS, Windows is the active partition.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Regards,

Alasdair

Re: [9fans] Bootsetup will not create floppy

[Joshua Wood]

>> Seems like there would be an option number:
>>
>> 3) Make a boot floppy, as discussed in update(8) and esp. the
>> EXAMPLES subhead in prep(8).
>>

My advice above is not directly useful to you. As Eric pointed out,  
9load + 9pcf.gz won't fit together on a 1.44MB floppy. I just didn't  
see his message before sending mine, and hadn't thought about putting  
a fossil kernel on a floppy. My apologies for the misdirection.

As Erik also notes, fossil systems generally boot not from floppy,  
but from the 9fat partition on a hard disk.

>
> Hi, CD drive is now sdD0, installed again but got the same error  
> message on attempting to create boot floppy.
>
> Downloaded plan9.flp.gz, on attempting to decompress got the  
> following error:
> gunzip: data stream error
> gunzip: plan9.flp.gz: uncompress failed
>
> Is the file on the server corrupt, or am I doing something wrong  
> (again!).

Plan9.flp.gz is an installer image -- basically what you already have  
on the bootable CD. I don't think it's appropriate for what you're  
trying to do, and I didn't recommend it. That said, while gnu gzip  
may not open it, plan9 gzip(1) will (from your live cd); windows 7zip  
will too, by my test. So I don't believe it's corrupt on the server.

> One last thing, perhaps I should have mentioned. Plan 9 (on the  
> hard disk) is installed in the last 6 GB of a 40 GB disk, behind  
> Windows XP on NTFS, Windows is the active partition.

That's rather pertinent. There are messages in the list archives  
about dual-booting; I think /n/sources/contrib/rsc/mbr.bootmgr,  
``Smart Boot Manager,'' might help. I can't say I've tried it myself,  
beyond just now checking that it brings up a partition selection  
screen on boot, once installed as the mbr on a disk.

--
Josh