FreeBSD 7 install -- help required!
I've installed FreeBSD 7 twice today, and both times it hangs with a blank screen and a blinking cursor after the install and final reboot. It's a AMD Athlon 64 X2 system with 2 GB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive (38162 MB, WD400JB). Before installing the first time, I erased it with a single blanking run of Derik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones! Oh, and one install I used the "FreeBSD Boot Manager" option, and the other time I told it to use the standard MBR option. So now what do I do? Kevin
Most of the blank screens that I have seen so far, was related to Display Adaptor Driver And not Hard Drives. set hard drive setting in BIOS to be auto or default and when you see the freebsd menue At start up select option 4 and boot it in single user mode, if boot in single user mode is successful, hard drive is detected fine, and you should look for display adapter driver. Have you tried to boot it with free bsd live cd ? -----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin McGregor Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:08 PM To: MUUG Roundtable Subject: [RndTbl] FreeBSD 7 install -- help required! I've installed FreeBSD 7 twice today, and both times it hangs with a blank screen and a blinking cursor after the install and final reboot. It's a AMD Athlon 64 X2 system with 2 GB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive (38162 MB, WD400JB). Before installing the first time, I erased it with a single blanking run of Derik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones! Oh, and one install I used the "FreeBSD Boot Manager" option, and the other time I told it to use the standard MBR option. So now what do I do? Kevin _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Well: The hard drive setting in the BIOS was set to auto already. Also, the computer hangs before the FreeBSD menu, right after the last BIOS output, so I can't select any boot option. I haven't tried booting with any FreeBSD live CD, but the Ubuntu live CD (for example) works fine. Also, I have since reinstalled FreeBSD selecting only the "User" set of packages (no X), and I get the same result. Any other suggestions? Bigadmin wrote:
Most of the blank screens that I have seen so far, was related to Display Adaptor Driver And not Hard Drives.
set hard drive setting in BIOS to be auto or default and when you see the freebsd menue At start up select option 4 and boot it in single user mode, if boot in single user mode is successful, hard drive is detected fine, and you should look for display adapter driver.
Have you tried to boot it with free bsd live cd ?
-----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin McGregor Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:08 PM To: MUUG Roundtable Subject: [RndTbl] FreeBSD 7 install -- help required!
I've installed FreeBSD 7 twice today, and both times it hangs with a blank screen and a blinking cursor after the install and final reboot. It's a AMD Athlon 64 X2 system with 2 GB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive (38162 MB, WD400JB). Before installing the first time, I erased it with a single blanking run of Derik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN).
At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones!
Oh, and one install I used the "FreeBSD Boot Manager" option, and the other time I told it to use the standard MBR option.
So now what do I do?
Kevin
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
It worth to boot with freebsd live cd or try to install older version of Free bsd, your hard drive is only 40 GB and older version of free bsd Like 4 or 5 should support it. When you boot to ubunto , do you see freebsd partitions that have been created at installation time ? This link might be useful. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/install-trouble.html -----Original Message----- From: Kevin McGregor [mailto:kmcgregor@shaw.ca] Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 8:06 PM To: Bigadmin Cc: 'MUUG Roundtable' Subject: Re: [RndTbl] FreeBSD 7 install -- help required! Well: The hard drive setting in the BIOS was set to auto already. Also, the computer hangs before the FreeBSD menu, right after the last BIOS output, so I can't select any boot option. I haven't tried booting with any FreeBSD live CD, but the Ubuntu live CD (for example) works fine. Also, I have since reinstalled FreeBSD selecting only the "User" set of packages (no X), and I get the same result. Any other suggestions? Bigadmin wrote:
Most of the blank screens that I have seen so far, was related to Display Adaptor Driver And not Hard Drives.
set hard drive setting in BIOS to be auto or default and when you see the freebsd menue At start up select option 4 and boot it in single user mode, if boot in single user mode is successful, hard drive is detected fine, and you should look for display adapter driver.
Have you tried to boot it with free bsd live cd ?
-----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin McGregor Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:08 PM To: MUUG Roundtable Subject: [RndTbl] FreeBSD 7 install -- help required!
I've installed FreeBSD 7 twice today, and both times it hangs with a blank screen and a blinking cursor after the install and final reboot. It's a AMD Athlon 64 X2 system with 2 GB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive (38162 MB, WD400JB). Before installing the first time, I erased it with a single blanking run of Derik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN).
At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones!
Oh, and one install I used the "FreeBSD Boot Manager" option, and the other time I told it to use the standard MBR option.
So now what do I do?
Kevin
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones!
This is the real clue. How big is the disk? I've seen this happen before but mostly on VERY large disk arrays (1TB +). If sysinstall is complaining about the disk geometry you won't be able to boot from that drive. Sysinstall is really old and busted but this is a portent to other issues. The other reason for this complaint is if the disk controller on your motherboard isn't supported all that well. Is this SATA/PATA? What is the Motherboard model as well as the drive model numbers? -- Sean
The motherboard is an ASUS M2A-VM with both SATA and PATA. I've been trying to install to the WD400 (~40 GB) PATA drive (master, CD-ROM is the slave). It seems to work fine during the install. Sean Cody wrote:
At the beginning of the install, it complained about the drive geometry (how 90s). The FreeBSD installer indicates that the geometry is set to 77545/16/63, that this is wrong, and it's using something better, which turns out to be 4865/255/63. When I go into the BIOS, it reports the geometry to be 19158/16/255. FreeBSD doesn't let me set the geometry to either of the two other ones!
This is the real clue. How big is the disk?
I've seen this happen before but mostly on VERY large disk arrays (1TB+). If sysinstall is complaining about the disk geometry you won't be able to boot from that drive. Sysinstall is really old and busted but this is a portent to other issues.
The other reason for this complaint is if the disk controller on your motherboard isn't supported all that well. Is this SATA/PATA? What is the Motherboard model as well as the drive model numbers?
There maybe something weird with the disk. A dmesg would be helpful but that's kind of hard to get if you can't get the boot-loader to work. If you can format the fdisk/format the disk using a linux live cd or something. Another method would be to DD the first MB of the disc and reboot. You need to reboot to refresh the in-kernel geometry, not sure how to reload the kernel config without rebooting or hot plugging the disk. My other suggestion would be to try another drive if you have one around. The motherboard in question has no FreeBSD 7 dmesg submitted but it seems to work with 6.2 (there were huge disk related changes between 6.2 and 7 so no assumptions can be made there). On 14-Apr-08, at 7:20 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
The motherboard is an ASUS M2A-VM with both SATA and PATA. I've been trying to install to the WD400 (~40 GB) PATA drive (master, CD-ROM is the slave). It seems to work fine during the install.
Yeah you can tell sysinstall to disregard the in-kernel geometry but I've only had that work once. It pretends the drive is ok but is misaligned and the boot record isn't in the right place not to mention even if the boot loader worked, mount would freak out about it. -- Sean
Bonehead beginner mistake: It wasn't trying to boot off the 40 GB drive, it was booting (or trying to) off the Seagate 750 GB drive. Yes, I should have mentioned that -- I assumed I knew what I was doing. See, I had the 40 GB drive on the IDE connector, which was showing up first in FreeBSD's list of drives to install on, so I figured that was first in the boot order too, which it wasn't according to the BIOS setting which I eventually looked at. The other two drives are SATA 750 GBs. I previously had no IDE hard drives in the system, so this didn't arise. Sigh. Thanks for all the suggestions, and sorry for dissing FreeBSD (if anyone out there was offended)! I can now SSH into the system. Sean Cody wrote:
There maybe something weird with the disk. A dmesg would be helpful but that's kind of hard to get if you can't get the boot-loader to work.
If you can format the fdisk/format the disk using a linux live cd or something. Another method would be to DD the first MB of the disc and reboot. You need to reboot to refresh the in-kernel geometry, not sure how to reload the kernel config without rebooting or hot plugging the disk.
My other suggestion would be to try another drive if you have one around. The motherboard in question has no FreeBSD 7 dmesg submitted but it seems to work with 6.2 (there were huge disk related changes between 6.2 and 7 so no assumptions can be made there).
On 14-Apr-08, at 7:20 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
The motherboard is an ASUS M2A-VM with both SATA and PATA. I've been trying to install to the WD400 (~40 GB) PATA drive (master, CD-ROM is the slave). It seems to work fine during the install.
Yeah you can tell sysinstall to disregard the in-kernel geometry but I've only had that work once. It pretends the drive is ok but is misaligned and the boot record isn't in the right place not to mention even if the boot loader worked, mount would freak out about it.
participants (3)
-
Bigadmin -
Kevin McGregor -
Sean Cody