Installation from boot floppy not working

["Mark Schmid" <markschmid_(_at_)_gmx_(_dot_)_ch>]

Hi all,

I find it impossible to use original vi to write anything, so I send this
report as an email also.

I'm new to OpenBSD so I don't have the CDs. I tried to install OpenBSD 3.5
i386 on two older i368 computers:
One was mainboard: MSI 6195 K7 Pro (AMD Athlon Processor)
and the other: ASUS P/I-XP55T2P4 (Socket 7 Intel P1 MMX Processor)

I tried to install with the installation boot floppy disks downloaded from
sunsite.cnlag-switch.ch/pub/OpenBSD/3.5/i386/.
On both machines this didn't work, although I tried several different floppy
disk devices and tried disabling CPU cache in mainboard BIOS.
Nothing helped.

Note, that all 3 used floppy disks (floppy35.fs, floppyB35.fs and
floppyC35.fs) worked perfect on my newer ASUS P4PE mainboard computer!!!

I then used the installation boot CD-ROM on MSI 6195 and ASUS P/I-XP55T2P4
mainboards which worked fine with the exact same hardware
and configuration.

Here are the output messages when trying to use the install boot floppies:
**********************
Loading;...
probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm pci mem[639K 127M a20=on]
disk: fd0 hd0+* hd1+*
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.06
open(fd0a:/etc/boot.conf):
    Invalid argument
 failed(22). will try /obsd
boot>
booting fd0a:/obsd: open fd0a:
      /obsd: Invalid argument
 failed(22). will try /bsd.old
boot>
booting fd0a:/bsd.old: open fd0a:
     /bsd.old: Invalid argument
 failed(22). will try /bsd
boot>
****************************
etc... this repeats until the message
"Turning timeout off." comes.


Note: Installation with boot CD-ROM works, but it's a waste
of a CD, it REQUIRES a newer CD-ROM drive which supports
auto-booting (something faster than 16x) and it's really
discouraging for all newbies to fail at such an early
point in installing OpenBSD.

Greetings,
Mark Schmid

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