Geometry BS

D

dextro_

Long story short I have this one machine that FreeBSD seems to hate! (not the same machine as my other thread incase anyone was wondering, that machine is up and running!)

Months ago I tried to install FreeBSD 7 on it and got a geometry error when formatting disk, someone in ##freebsd on freenode ended up recommending me a geometry that worked, got the drive formatted, partitioned and FreeBSD installed.

Only downfall was it only actually booted 1 in 2 or 3 tries, the times is failed it spit out some geometry error I can't remember. So I went with Arch Linux and it worked great, acted as my LAN router for months.

Recently I have come accross pfSense and really want to give it a go but I am running into this geometry stuff again during the install.

My first install went as follows

http://imgur.com/GV0oS
http://imgur.com/VqtuN
http://imgur.com/4O4mY
http://imgur.com/ePifr

Seemed to install fine but would not boot. So I try again and get the following:

http://imgur.com/IYgAe
http://imgur.com/2uhbf
http://imgur.com/E7dCo

I really have no idea what is going on, can anyone help? I am using pfSense-1.2.3-20090922-0023.iso.gz on a m7ncg 400 with a Hitachi Deskstar 7k80 80gb IDE
 
The geometry warning during sysinstall is not an error and you can usually ignore it.
 
Did you even read my post? It doesn't matter if I change geometry to what it recommends or leave it as it was. I either can't boot from HDD after install or can't even format/partition.
 
Your original post only mentioned that you had indeed changed it instead of just ignoring the error and accepting the defaults. I've done countless installs with geometry warnings ignored, and none has ever failed (well, not for that specific reason anyway).
 
I was referring to FreeBSD, not pfsense (which has its own forums).
 
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/0C810B96385B2DBA86256E40006FB9F1/$file/d7k80_sp1.6.pdf said:
4.0 Drive characteristics
4.1 Default logical drive parameters
Notes:
1. Number of cylinders: For drives with capacities greater than 8.45 GB the Identify Device information word 01
limits the number of cylinders to 16, 383 per the ATA specification.
2. Logical layout: Logical layout is an imaginary drive parameter (that is, the number of heads) which is used to
access the drive from the system interface. The logical layout to Physical layout (that is, the actual Head and Sectors
) translation is done automatically in the drive. The default setting can be obtained by issuing an IDENTIFY
DEVICE command.
Table 1: Formatted capacities
HDS728040PLAT20 HDS728080PLAT20
Physical Layout
Label capacity (GB) 40 80
Bytes per sector 512 512
Sectors per track 567-1170 567-1170
Number of heads 1 2
Number of disks 1 1
Data sectors per cylinder 567-1170 1134-2340
Data cylinders per zone 1444-4501 1444-4501
Logical layout1
Number of heads 16 16
Number of Sectors per track 63 63
Number of Cylinders2 16,383 16,383
Number of sectors 80,418,240 160,836,480
Total logical data bytes 41,174,138,880 82,348,277,760
Click to expand...

I tried the geometry listed there too, which did not match the recommended or current geom of drive.

Got another errorless install and then boot disk fail when I tried to boot from HDD.
 
DutchDaemon said:
I was referring to FreeBSD, not pfSense (which has its own forums).
Click to expand...

As I said FreeBSD install gives me the exact same results so I don't see how it would not be relevant here (also considering pfSense IS FreeBSD...)
 
pfsense is a customized distribution of FreeBSD, with a different sysinstaller (how much it actually differs on a lower level I don't know, but it certainly might).

If you say that you installed FreeBSD on the default geometry as suggested by FreeBSD's sysinstall I'll take your word for it.

But that fact was not in your post, so SirDice's and my replies were based on that.

If you want to pursue installing pfsense and need support with that: http://forum.pfsense.org/

Addendum: I've seen a few examples of valid FreeBSD-based advice falling on barren soil because the thread starter was actually using a FreeBSD variant like PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, etc. Small as the differences may be, they may bite.
 
With both sets of screen shots were you booting with the same hard drive installed? It's really strange that two completely different geometries would be detected each time.

Anyhow, it sounds like you're setting up a system that'll run a single copy of FreeBSD only, ie. no multi-booting. Why don't you rather setup your disk without partitions, in dedicated mode? I think that might solve your headaches.

Try download the embedded pfSense image and dd it directly to your disk device (eg. /dev/ad0).
 
DutchDaemon said:
But that fact was not in your post, so SirDice's and my replies were based on that.
Click to expand...
dextro_ said:
Months ago I tried to install FreeBSD 7 on it and got a geometry error when formatting disk, someone in ##freebsd on freenode ended up recommending me a geometry that worked, got the drive formatted, partitioned and FreeBSD installed.

Only downfall was it only actually booted 1 in 2 or 3 tries, the times is failed it spit out some geometry error I can't remember. So I went with Arch Linux and it worked great, acted as my LAN router for months.
Click to expand...
I am also seeking support from pfSense but this is clearly a FreeBSD problem not just pfSense.
 
aragon said:
With both sets of screen shots were you booting with the same hard drive installed? It's really strange that two completely different geometries would be detected each time.

Anyhow, it sounds like you're setting up a system that'll run a single copy of FreeBSD only, ie. no multi-booting. Why don't you rather setup your disk without partitions, in dedicated mode? I think that might solve your headaches.

Try download the embedded pfSense image and dd it directly to your disk device (eg. /dev/ad0).
Click to expand...

Yes, it is the same drive. Finally someone who sees what my problem is! Yes I am dedicating the entire drive to pfSense I will try and dd the embedded .img to the drive now.
 
Something I forget every now and then.. Turns out some BIOS' trip over it. Did you mark the slice (aka PC/BIOS partition) active?
 
In the case of dextro's latest attempt, there is no slice...

Dextro, do you have another motherboard you can try boot off that drive?
 
I slaved the HDD into my desktop machine, created a VM with it as its disk and installed pfSense on it that way. Put the HDD back in the machine I wanted it on and booted from it without a problem, strange how I had to do that...
 
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