FreeBSD 9.1 installation won't recognize drive

unixlearn · Jan 3, 2013

When I get to the bsdinstall Partition Editor, I only see one drive in my dual drive system. Currently my system is a dual drive dual boot system with windows on the first drive. The second drive has two partitions. One partition is for ~~Freebsd~~ FreeBSD. The other is for sharing files between windows and ~~freebsd~~ FreeBSD. This whole setup works very well in ~~Freebsd~~ FreeBSD 8.0-8.3. I currently have 8.3 installed.
When I get to the Partition Editor in ~~Freebsd~~ FreeBSD 9.1-Release DVD (also same issue on 9.0), I only see my first drive that already has windows on it.

Code:

Create partitions for FreeBSD. No changes will be made until you select Finish.
ada0     149 GB MBR
  ada0s1 100 MB NTFS
  ada0s2 149 GB NTFS

<Create> <Delete> <Modify> <Revert> <Auto> <Finish>

I do not see the second drive or the ability to select the ~~Freebsd~~ FreeBSD Partition to install 9.1 on.

kpa · Jan 3, 2013

Drop into a shell (at the menu where you selected install, choose shell) and look at the output of dmesg(8) command. Anything related to ada1 in there?

unixlearn · Jan 3, 2013

Nothing about ada1. How would I go about saving dmesg in a text so that I can post it? I know how to do it from my OS but not from the installation DVD.

tingo · Jan 4, 2013

There are several possible ways:
- mount a partition on your drive (/tmp comes to mind) and save to that
- configure networking, save locally, and scp to another machine
- use a usb memory stick or hard drive

unixlearn · Jan 7, 2013

tingo said:
There are several possible ways:
- mount a partition on your drive (/tmp comes to mind) and save to that
- configure networking, save locally, and scp to another machine
- use a usb memory stick or hard drive

This may be a workaround but it doesn't solve the problem. This is a problem that seems to be unique to the 9.x series. All the lower versions of FreeBSD works fine for installation. There has to be a reason why.

wblock@ · Jan 7, 2013

You're going to have to show a lot more details. A full dmesg -a would be a start. What about the hardware: how are the drives connected, what type are they?

tingo · Jan 14, 2013

unixlearn said:
This may be a workaround but it doesn't solve the problem. This is a problem that seems to be unique to the 9.x series. All the lower versions of FreeBSD works fine for installation. There has to be a reason why.

Yes, this ia a workaround - it allows you to get the dmesg output out of your machine, nothing else.

fbsd1 · Jan 15, 2013

For the kind of information needed to help you. a dmesg file from a 8.3 install will be fine. So install 8.3 on that box that 9.1 can not see the second drive. This looks like a problem with the bsdinstall script.

unixlearn · Dec 4, 2013

Here is my dmesg http://pastebin.com/HESiGDua. I needed to used FreeBSD 8.3 to create it. I didn't know how to create it with the FreeBSD 9.2 disk.

junovitch@ · Dec 6, 2013

Both are the same model. That is quite odd that one isn't recognized. On FreeBSD 9.2 you should see lines containing similar information but with drive names ada0/ada1 instead. Can you find those lines on FreeBSD 9's dmesg output?

Code:

ad4: 152627MB <TOSHIBA MK1637GSX DL030M> at ata2-master UDMA100 SATA 1.5Gb/s
ad8: 152627MB <TOSHIBA MK1637GSX DL030M> at ata4-master UDMA100 SATA 1.5Gb/s

unixlearn · Dec 7, 2013

As I stated previously, I don't know how to produce a dmesg without an installation. I have the FreeBSD 9.2 installation, but I think I need more detailed help on how to produce a dmesg from it because all I received was illegible jargon. It seems to be a problem that is unique to the bsdinstall that was introduced with FreeBSD 9.x and up. The sysinstall that was previous to that version worked fine.

unixlearn · Dec 25, 2013

Here is my dmesg that was created with 9.2 http://pastebin.com/CBqHcx7V. If there is any help, please include detailed instructions. It is taking me a while to understand this.

unixlearn · Jan 3, 2014

What I'm noticing is that in the FreeBSD 8.3 dmesg, the drives are recognized like this:

Code:

ad4: 152627MB <TOSHIBA MK1637GSX DL030M> at ata2-master UDMA100 SATA 1.5Gb/s

ad8: 152627MB <TOSHIBA MK1637GSX DL030M> at ata4-master UDMA100 SATA 1.5Gb/s

Meanwhile, in the FreeBSD 9.2 dmesg there is only a single drive recognition like this.

Code:

ada0 at ahcich0 bus 0 scbus1 target 0 lun 0

ada0: <TOSHIBA MK1637GSX DL030M> ATA-7 SATA 1.x device

ada0: 150.000MB/s transfers (SATA 1.x, UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)

Why are the drive identifications so different? Is there a way to get it to recognize the other one? Perhaps there is a conflict if the drives are the same model. I am about to reinstall FreeBSD. I would like to install the 9.x series if possible. Otherwise, I will be stuck with the 8.x series.