Solved FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

gkbsd

gkbsd

Hello,

I installed FreeBSD 10-RELEASE amd64 from CD to my computer : a seven years old motherboard, Core2 Duo E6600, 4Go 4 GB RAM, 1To 1 TB SATA2 HDD. The installation went fine, and when the computer reboots, it hangs at the BIOS screen, I cannot enter the BIOS or display the boot menu. There is only one empty HDD plugged in, fully dedicated to the FreeBSD install.

I have read that the default installation is using GPT partitions, and that my motherboard may not know about GPT (I found posts in this forum talking about that). Thus I wiped the disk on another computer using an external USB HDD case, and tried again by creating an MBR, a main BSD partition, and then created my slices in there with the default freebsd-ufs partition type (/, swap, /var, /tmp, /usr, /data). Same as before, to my surprise, I'm stuck at the BIOS screen. I even tried with ZFS (MBR version) and the same happens. As soon as I wipe the disk on another computer, and put it back to mine, the computer "boots" (it gets past the BIOS screen, and obviously displays that no OS is found). I tried changing BIOS disks options to no avail: AHCI (default), to SATA only/enhanced/combined, it never boots. I tried with two other HDDs, one being an SSD. I plugged back in my main HDD instead, where my Windows 8/Linux Mint boots fine for either OS. This computer booted successfully from Windows XP to Windows 8, including Linux. Is there anything else to try?

Thanks in advance :)

Regards,

Guillaume.
 
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

It was a built from scratch computer, and the motherboard is an MSI 975X Platinum. At the BIOS screen it says
Code: 
v7.40 012407, Phoenix - AwardBios v6.00PG
I have booted into Windows and ran the MSI LiveUpdate application, but it told that I already have the lastest BIOS version. I will look into the thread you linked, thanks.

Guillaume
 
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

Below are more details about the steps I follow. BIOS SATA mode is in AHCI.
  1. FreeBSD 10-RELEASE amd64 CD boot
  2. I select "Install".
  3. I uncheck "games" and "ports" at the package selection.
  4. I choose "Manual" to create partitions.
    1. I delete the current partition scheme, the screen then shows:
      Code: 
      ada0     932 GB     (none)
    2. I create the MBR, the BSD partition, then all freebsd-ufs partitions with the default options (softupdates + journaled softupdates). The final partitions scheme looks like this:
      Code: 
      ada0          932 GB     MBR
  ada0s1     932 GB     BSD
    ada0s1a   5.0GB     freebsd-ufs     /
    ada0s1b   2.0GB     freebsd-swap
    ada0s1d   5.0GB     freebsd-ufs     /var
    ada0s1e   2.0GB     freebsd-ufs     /tmp
    ada0s1f   100GB     freebsd-ufs     /usr
    ada0s1g   818GB     freebsd-ufs     /data
  5. I click Finish and then Commit.
  6. I choose DHCP for the single NIC em0 (no IPV6).
  7. After the timezone, I uncheck sshd from the listed daemons.
  8. I add one user, add it to the wheel group, then exit and apply the configuration.
  9. I open a shell before rebooting:
    # gpart show
    Code: 
    =>          63          1953525105     ada0     MBR                     (932G)
             63           1953525042          1     freebsd  [active]   (932G)
1953525105                        63                -  free  -                (32K)

=>            0           1953525042   ada0s1   BSD                       (932G)
               0               10485760            1  freebsd-ufs             (5.0G)
   10485760                4194304             2  freebsd-swap          (2.0G)
   14680064               10485760            4  freebsd-ufs             (5.0G)
   25165824                 4194304            5  freebsd-ufs             (2.0G)
   29360128              209715200           6  freebsd-ufs             (100G)
 239075328             1714449713           7  freebsd-ufs             (818G)
1953525041                          1                 -  free  -                 (512B)

Then I reboot, and I'm stuck at the BIOS screen, the disk is seen, there are no error messages.

Guillaume

EDIT : someone with similar problem at another BSD forum (can I post the link?). He had to install 8.4 which was finally booting with a MBR install (9.x was giving him a BIOS freeze), and then he could install 9.2RC3 by reusing the existing partitions. He then installed FreeBSD 9.1 and it worked too, still reusing the same partitions. A direct FreeBSD 9.x install led to a BIOS freeze. That means there is some hope, I suppose gpart could fix it if I could guess what's wrong with my BIOS.
 
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

You don't seem to have created a freebsd-boot partition, so it's not installing the boot items like the kernel and boot loader etc. which is why its not booting. See here http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html.

I think that the error that says No OS found is part of a boot loader, so that shows after you wipe the disk in a different computer because the other computer is putting some boot code onto the disk, but the installation you are doing is removing that so it doesn't show on the FreeBSD PC after install because all of the boot code isn't present.
 
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

Wow it works! I'm baffled because I am used to the setup offering me to create a boot partition when I manually create my partitions with GPT. With MBR the setup does not offer anything, but as you have seen, the BIOS hangs. This time I created an MBR, then a freebsd-boot 64 KB partition, followed by what I did above: one big BSD freebsd partition, inside which I created the usual freebsd-ufs partitions. I must add that there were geom warnings in the background, overlapping the ncurses graphics, stating many times that the disk label was wrong when I selected the finish button. In the end the setup finished, and I was able to reboot successfully and boot into the installed system. I updated it, installed xorg and mate and was able to start in a graphic environment. There is no disk error I can see when the system boots up. I don't know if it's a standard procedure, or only for buggy BIOSes, but it works on my computer :beergrin Thanks!

@wblock the geom warnings seem to agree with you, but I guess my BIOS is really that buggy to accept that setup?

Regards,

Guillaume
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

My guess is that the BIOS expects something on the first MBR partition, and the unused partition hides that. Use it until it dies, and look at brands other than MSI the next time you buy.
 
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

I definitely will, thanks :) Should I change the topic title to "SOLVED"?

Guillaume
 
gkbsd said:
Re: FreeBSD 10 not booting: stuck at BIOS screen

Wow it works! I'm baffled because I am used to the setup offering me to create a boot partition when I manually create my partitions with GPT. With MBR the setup does not offer anything, but as you have seen, the BIOS hangs. This time I created an MBR, then a freebsd-boot 64 KB partition, followed by what I did above: one big BSD freebsd partition, inside which I created the usual freebsd-ufs partitions. I must add that there were geom warnings in the background, overlapping the ncurses graphics, stating many times that the disk label was wrong when I selected the finish button. In the end the setup finished, and I was able to reboot successfully and boot into the installed system. I updated it, installed xorg and mate and was able to start in a graphic environment. There is no disk error I can see when the system boots up. I don't know if it's a standard procedure, or only for buggy BIOSes, but it works on my computer :beergrin Thanks!

@wblock the geom warnings seem to agree with you, but I guess my BIOS is really that buggy to accept that setup?

Regards,

Guillaume
Click to expand...
But why do you have to stick to MBR at all? If you're not going to install previous Windows versions on that disk, why not use GPT partitioning instead? I find it to be working much better than MBR, and you can have as many primary partitions as you wish, and NO NEED to create logical subpartitions either. I like this and believe it to be a big step forward. Though I have no option to try many different motherboards and BIOSes, but I suspect they'll all work fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top