Solved Unable to build bootable media - SOLVED

Today, I decided to install FreeBSD on an "extra" HD in two of my computers here. Both 'pooters are presently running WinDoze 10 Pro. First, using Firebox, I downloaded the version 12.1 amd64 ISOs for DVD1 for Disk1, and for Bootonly, and the memstick image, with the idea of installing FreeBSD on other computers as needed. Then I burnt a DVD, a CD, and a memstick.
I used Nero for the CD and DVD and ImageBurn for the memstick.

Adjusting the BIOS in two desktop computers to boot from which ever media I used resulted in total failure to boot. The CD and DVD both started to boot, but eventually returned an error telling me that the file BOOT/LUA/LOADER.LUA could not be found. Yet looking at the media with a file explorer finds that file is there.

The memstick was "looked at" by the 'pooter, but nothing happens. I know both machines will boot from a USB flash drive, because I have an Ubuntu distro on one which works fine. The memstick contains one directory efi/boot, and two files, BOOTx64.efi and startup.nsh in the boot directory. I can't see how the computer can boot from a file that is two directory levels deep, but that is just me.

Assuming (a bad idea) that my CD/DVD media may have been bad, I re-burnt the ISOs. I got the same result: nothing works and I get the same error message.

Thinking that perhaps Firefox downloaded the files in ASCII, I fired up FileZilla (latest version), set it to BINARY, and downloaded all the files again, and again burnt them to CD/DVD with ISOBurner.

Same result.

So....obviously I either I am doing something wrong, or WinDoze 10 has an issue I don't know about.

Can anyone help with this? This is irritating the heck out of me.

FYI, I had used FreeBSD for many years while I worked at the University of Idaho. The first time I used it was at least 30 years ago. I liked it a lot. I used it to support an e-mail and webserver for the University department for which I worked, until the U finally did that for all of us. A couple of years ago, I installed TrueOS on my shop computer. Although it works OK, I am not really too impressed with it, and want to go back to straight FreeBSD.

Ken Gordon
 
The memstick contains one directory efi/boot, and two files, BOOTx64.efi and startup.nsh in the boot directory. I can't see how the computer can boot from a file that is two directory levels deep, but that is just me.
Windows can only read and access the EFI partition because that partition is actually FAT32. Windows simply doesn't support the UFS partition that's on there too. EFI boots in a specific way (see uefi(8)) and searches for that file in that directory and starts the executable. The BOOTX64.EFI EFI executable has enough logic to read the rest of the boot stages from the UFS partition.

You should try booting with CSM enabled: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#CSM_booting
 
Last night, I got my main desktop to boot from the memstick. However, the result was multiple error messages. DEVD wouldn't run, then followed a long series of errors centered around CAM and CBB. Certain files would not be formed, etc. So, I still have no clear idea of what is going on with that.

As far as enabling CSM, the BIOSs do not appear to mention anything about that. The mobos, btw, are older Gigabyte jobs.

But, what is really bugging me is why the CD and DVD won't work? It is as though WinDoze 10 is doing something to the files which prevents them from being seen.

Even firing up the necessary software in "Run as Administrator" mode makes no difference. I am about to fire up an old version of WinXP-Pro and burn a CD or DVD with that to eliminate any possible weird issue with Win10....assuming I have burner software that will run under XP.

And, as I reported earlier, the Ubuntu (ver 16) which I have on a different memstick works perfectly.

But, if I could get either of the DVD or CD to work, I would abandon any further attempt to use the memstick since it has its own problems which I would rather ignore for the time being.

Gee.... what a giant PITA. :-(

I still think the problems with the CD and DVD center around something Win10 is doing, but I have not yet figured that out.

Ken Gordon
 
At this point, I have burned at least 6 DVDs using every method I can think of. The last thing I have done is to change the permissions on the ISO file to add Everyone with full permissions, thinking that Win10 had flagged files and directories as unavailable to the system when booting from the DVD.

EVERY SINGLE TIME I boot from a DVD or CD, I get the error message "File \boot\lua\loader.lua not found", yet looking at the DVD that file most certainly IS there, as are, apparently, all necessary directories and files!!!

This is driving me nuts!

Anyone?

Ken Gordon
 
I posted the following in another thread, but I thought I should post it here too.

Yesterday, I found a partial solution to the problem for ONE of my computers, my main desktop: in the BIOS, when I activated both "Native Mode" instead of "IDE Mode" for SATA drives, AND activated AHCI for those devices, the bootonly CD I had made, worked. However, the same solution did not work for the other computer, the one in my shop.

However, then my regular Win10 system would not boot, until I reverted the BIOS back to what it was originally, and reset the correct choice of boot drive.

Today, I am going to only activate "Native Mode" , and NOT ACHI, since from another report here, ACHI may cause problems. I will then report here what my result is.

From the second of two bug reports on this issue, and from my experiences, it MAY be that something in the distro may have difficulty with some BIOS settings in some computers on how to handle drives, including using a USB-HD.

I am still investigating.

Thanks for the help.

Ken Gordon
 
In order to complete the installation of FreeBSD ver 12.1 from a DVD, I had to adjust the BIOS so that the SATA drives were operating in "Native" mode rather than "IDE" mode, AND had to turn on AHCI. Attempting to do the job with only "Native Mode" activated did not work. I still am not yet sure that activating ONLY AHCI will work, but will test that asap and will report here.

The DVD was then read correctly, FreeBSD was installed on my spare 320 GB drive and is operating correctly.

In order to be able to boot from my Win10 drive (1 TB) I had to revert the BIOS to the original settings for the SATA drives (IDE mode and no ACHI) then choose the boot drive from the opening screen.

Now I have to do some work on the FreeBSD setup and since it has been more than a few years since I've used Unix, I'll have to relearn a lot.

I still have had no success with the older computer in my shop.

Ken Gordon
 
In order to be able to boot from my Win10 drive (1 TB) I had to revert the BIOS to the original settings for the SATA drives (IDE mode and no ACHI) then choose the boot drive from the opening screen.

When I changed my existing Win7 box over to ACHI there was a registry edit that needed to be made... I can't remember exactly what is was but I'll bet my last donut that the same fix is available for Win10... Suggest you head over to Google and see what you can find there....
 
That worked, thanks. There was momentary weirdness with my video, but after rebooting twice it went away.

Ken Gordon
 
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I am still having troubles getting FreeBSD to install on my shop computer. Even after adjusting the BIOS to activate AHCI. and activating "Native" mode, the system still reports certain files not found.

At this point, I am not sure what to do.

Funny thing is that I installed TrueOS on this same box a number of years ago without issues. However, now I can no longer update that distro. The pointers to where the update files reside on the web are so out-of-date the system can't find them and I have not yet found the file in which those pointers reside so I can edit them to reflect the modern link.

Well, more work to do...

Ken Gordon
 
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