FreeBSD 13 UFS/MBR Install Fails on VMDK, but works fine on VDI

I don't know if anyone else had come across this as of yet, but I set out today to see if I could create an OCI compliant image for Oracle Cloud of a minimal FreeBSD 13-RELEASE install. Part of the requirements for importing a custom image is that it must be a VMDK disk and partitioned with MBR (I don't have this issue with Azure; it seems like Oracle is always playing catchup, but that's another debate for another time on a different forum ;))

Anyway, the installer will crash (hung system) if I try to use "Auto UFS" on my blank 12GB VMDK disk. I tried partitioning it manually (via bsdinstall) but I get a very nondescript popup that says "invalid option." So, I opted to drop to the shell and partition it out by hand using gpart.

I can partition the drive successfully ( gpart create -s MBR ada0). However, the moment I attempt to add the first (boot) partition ( gpart add -t freebsd-boot -s 512 -l boot ada0) or any other partition for that matter, gpart errors out with "Invalid option."

However, if I do this on a VDI, it works fine.

For my workaround, I did the complete install on a VDI and then cloned the medium to a VMDK which then booted with no problem. Is this a known issue that I missed somewhere? Are there specific settings for a VMDK within VBox that need to be enabled to allow FreeBSD (gpart) to play nicely?
 
The freebsd-boot partition is for GPT systems, MBR doesn't use it.

or any other partition for that matter, gpart errors out with "Invalid option."
With MBR you need to create partitions inside a slice. See the examples in gpart(8).
 
The freebsd-boot partition is for GPT systems, MBR doesn't use it.


With MBR you need to create partitions inside a slice. See the examples in gpart(8).

Thanks for the response.

I hear what you're saying, and I'm going to explore further today, but please keep in mind that it's also failing when I attempt to use the "Auto UFS" option which is the installer doing all the partitioning. So, to summarize, if I allow the installer to auto partition my blank VDI drive as MBR, it works but if it's a VMDK (also blank), it fails.

For the manual install, I was following the instructions found here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/procedure-for-manual-installation.64370/
 
Did a quick test install on Virtualbox 6.1 (Windows host) and FreeBSD 13.0 installed just fine with Auto (UFS) and MBR on a VMDK disk.
 
Same here. Tested dynamically allocated & fixed size for VMDK. They work both.
It's "Auto ZFS" (if you choose MBR) that doesn't work, no matter what the disk is.
 
I should have mentioned I'm on a macOS host. Sorry.

Problem is, my VMs are on my iMac, but depending on where I am, I could be using a Mac, a Surface (Win10), or even FreeBSD running on an old (white) MacBook or Dell Laptop! I'm so platform agnostic (the exception being Linux - I avoid that hot mess!) I forget what I'm using sometimes. Unless I'm sitting directly on my Mac machine, everything is VBoxManage via SSH and RDP or serial port redirection!
 
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