Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.
If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not boot.
I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the floppy -
I think this is why its failing.
Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
floppy?
Thanks.
Phil
Re: Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
"McCracken" <pbeutel@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d82b459-7553-4631-b14f-6173ab93c532@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
>I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.
>
> If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
> fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not boot.
>
> I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the floppy -
> I think this is why its failing.
>
> Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
> floppy?[/color]
What exactly do you mean by "the system will not boot"?
Does it fail to POST?
Does it not get to the boot: prompt whatsoever?
Does it just hang after hitting 'enter' at the boot: prompt?
Or something else entirely?
Bob
Re: Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
Hi Bob,
It gets to the boot: prompt, I hit enter and nothing happens.
On Aug 8, 6:14*pm, "Bob Bailin" <72027.3...@compuserve.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> "McCracken" <pbeu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:3d82b459-7553-4631-b14f-6173ab93c532@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
>[color=green]
> >I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
> > fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not boot.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the floppy -
> > I think this is why its failing.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
> > floppy?[/color]
>
> What exactly do you mean by "the system will not boot"?
> Does it fail to POST?
> Does it not get to the boot: prompt whatsoever?
> Does it just hang after hitting 'enter' at the boot: prompt?
> Or something else entirely?
>
> Bob[/color]
Re: Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
[color=blue]
>"McCracken" <pbeutel@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:0ea5361a-3086-4bb5-b470->f6fac958094a@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>
>On Aug 8, 6:14 pm, "Bob Bailin" <72027.3...@compuserve.com> wrote:[color=green]
>> "McCracken" <pbeu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:3d82b459-7553-4631-b14f-6173ab93c532@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
>>[color=darkred]
>> >I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.[/color]
>>[color=darkred]
>> > If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
>> > fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not boot.[/color]
>>[color=darkred]
>> > I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the floppy -
>> > I think this is why its failing.[/color]
>>[color=darkred]
>> > Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
>> > floppy?[/color]
>>
>> What exactly do you mean by "the system will not boot"?
>> Does it fail to POST?
>> Does it not get to the boot: prompt whatsoever?
>> Does it just hang after hitting 'enter' at the boot: prompt?
>> Or something else entirely?
>>
>> Bob[/color]
>
>Hi Bob,
>
>It gets to the boot: prompt, I hit enter and nothing happens.
>[/color]
The boot program is probably trying to check the type of
floppy drive, since the BIOS didn't specify one.
There are two settings in most BIOSes regarding the floppy.
The first, usually on the main page of setup, describes what
type of floppy drive you have, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88 or none. I
assume this is the one you set to "none". Also make sure
that the floppy is not part of the BIOS boot sequence.
There's another setting that enables or disables the floppy
controller. This should be set to "disabled" so that boot
doesn't try to detect the floppy type.
If this doesn't work, just leave the settings as they were,
no harm, no foul.
Bob
Re: Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
>I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.
[color=blue]
> If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
> fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not[/color]
boot.
[color=blue]
> I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the[/color]
floppy -[color=blue]
> I think this is why its failing.[/color]
[color=blue]
> Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
> floppy?
>[/color]
Watch the splash message during the hardware detection phase There may
be an error message telling you what is wrong. Or look at the last
part of /usr/adm/messages to see the same info.
I unplugged the floppy on one of my testbed machines and whether or
not I had the controller active or the drive specified I got a warning
message that there was no floppy available. That would indicate to me
that your problem is a little deeper. Could there have been a floppy
installed when the system was loaded?
hd(40)unix is an alternate way of specifying the current version. It
comes up with the same error messages.
Re: Booting problems - no physical floppy disk
On Aug 9, 6:53*am, ed <unixst...@bellsouth.net> wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> >I have a SCO 5.0.5 box that does not have a physical floppy disk.[/color]
>
> *> If I setup the BIOS to pretend there is a floppy the system boots
> *> fine, when I remove the floppy from the BIOS the system will not
> boot.
>
> *> I've read that issuing hd(40)unix at boot: first searches the
> floppy -
> *> I think this is why its failing.
>
> *> Is there any boot: command I can issue to skip searching for the
> *> floppy?
>
> Watch the splash message during the hardware detection phase There may
> be an error message telling you what is wrong. Or look at the last
> part of /usr/adm/messages to see the same info.
>
> I unplugged the floppy on one of my testbed machines and whether or
> not I had the controller active or the drive specified I got a warning
> message that there was no floppy available. That would indicate to me
> that your problem is a little deeper. Could there have been a floppy
> installed when the system was loaded?
>
> hd(40)unix is an alternate way of specifying the current version. It
> comes up with the same error messages.[/color]
The machine was 'ghosted' from another machine that the system was
built on, the original machine had a floppy disk but the new target
machine does not.