Re: Problems with etherboot and Boot prompt.

[Andrew Coulthurst <andyc@svarog.demon.co.uk>]

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Thanks Doug,

I think everyone else misunderstood my original problem, 

When I type 'N" ( To the boot from Network prompt ) , etherboot just calls
exit() - this is passed back to the loader - and in turn this performs an
int 19h - which I also do not fully understand.
( Ralph Browns excellent interrupt list document states that it will
usually cause a system hang - expecially if any of the low software int's
have been changed ! )

Do you have your patches for the exit() problem ? ( The one that allows a
Win98 floppy to boot if you answer 'N' ? )

Unfortunately my Eprom Programmer/Emulator is in for repair at the moment (
I'd rather test it in situ than use a floppy ! ) so I''m motionless on
solving the problem.

BTW With the Intel 10/100B which chip are you using , the 82557 or the new
82558 ? , are you using the patches by me - or does it work without the
patches ?. I'm trying to decide if the 10/100B driver is good enough ( it
is for me - but I only use it in one machine ) or if it should somehow be
updated to come in line with recent kernels.

Andy.

At 09:33 AM 7/1/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Charlie Brady writes:
>| On Tue, 30 Jun 1998, Heinrich Rebehn wrote:
>| > Charlie Brady wrote:
>| > > Yes, I have this problem now. DOS boots fine if I select N (normal boot
>| > > from HD). Win95 hangs however. I have no idea what is different
about the
>| > > way that Win95 boots, but there is a difference. Does anyone have any
>| > > ideas?
>| > > 
>| > > I am using the 32bit compile of etherboot-4.0, BTW.
>| > 
>| > I have a similar problem using a netboot-0-7.3 eprom on a 3c905-TX. DOS
>| > and NT boot fine if i choose local boot, but WIN95 hangs for some
>| > minutes and then resets the PC. I *think* i have read somewhere that
>| > WIN95 doesn't like fully initialized NICs when booting??
>| 
>| I don't think this can be the answer, at least not for etherboot. I don't
>| think that etherboot touches the NIC at all if you choose not to boot from
>| the network. I wonder what it is doing in its exit() code that upsets
>| Win95. Any other ideas?
>
>I might be able to shed some light on this.  I've been hacking on the
>etherboot (ironically) to boot FreeBSD (why? because etherboot support the
>Intel 10/100B).  The original FreeBSD code has been fixed so that on exit
>of the netboot code Win95/Win98 will boot.  Trying to do the same with
>the 3.2 code (ie. exit without booting from the net) would hang win98.
>So I've applied changes and I've got that part to work with etherboot
>(ie. calling exit from within etherboot make the machine reboot 
>and boot win98).  This does not help the case of booting the hard disk
>or floppy.  I have been struggling with that and don't understand 
>how all of that is supposed to work.  My guesses have failed.  If 
>someone has any ideas and can work on the code I will try to separate 
>out my patches that fix the exit part and send them.  I can also then 
>try to apply them to the 4.0 stuff as well.
>
>So my test case is that I made a win98 boot floppy, copy the etherboot
>com file onto it.  Boot the win98 floppy, run etherboot and then 
>select the option not to do the netboot.  Then the machine boots the
>floppy again.  Without my patches it would hang in the boot of the floppy.
>
>If this is of any help let me know.  I would really like to get the 
>boot from hard disk working.  I also fixed a bugs of etherboot
>not working with long bootp replies. 
>
>Doug A.
> 

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