[comp.os.minix] Help - Can't boot from MINIX floppy when HD installed

ed@iitmax.IIT.EDU (Ed Federmeyer) (12/31/89)

I am having some problems getting MINIX 1.1 to work the way I want it to...
I have an XT clone, with 640K, 2 360K floppies, and a 30Mb Seagate RLL
controller/hard disk combo.  The controller is the ST412/RLL and the HD
is an ST-238R. Seagate calls it their "Paired program" or "Paired storage
solution."  The HD has only one big DOS partition right now, but I want to
give DOS 15Mb, and MINIX 15Mb.

Here's the problem:

I took the hard disk controller and hard disk out of the system so that
there were only 2 floppy drives.  In this configuration, I could boot the
MINIX system, mount all the floppies, and it all seemed to work as expected.

Then I put the hard disk controller and hard disk back in, but now when
trying to boot the MINIX floppy, it says "Disk boot failure.  Press any key
to retry."  I can still boot DOS from floppy or hard disk.

So, I took the HD/controller out again, and wala', MINIX worked fine again.

The wierd thing is- I tried my copy of MINIX on a real IBM XT in our PC
lab, wich had 1 360K floppy, and a hard disk, (I have no idea who made
the controller or HD) and MINIX booted and ran fine.

Is this a known problem?  If it is, is there a patch available?  Is it just
that I am doing something wrong? (Or not doing something right?)  If you
(the net-at-large) need more info, I'll elaborate...  You can reply via
E-mail or comp.os.minix... I read both.

Ed Federmeyer (ed@iitMax.iit.edu)  (sysed@iitVax.bitnet)
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