Install troubles, frozen BIOS screen

Chris Buchanzn

Chris Buchanzn

Hi guys,

I'm attempting to install FreeBSD 10.0. I made a new partition (30 GB) and divided it with the guided partition wizard during the install process. I got to the reboot section and the computer is frozen on a screen which displays
Code: 
[F2]: Bios setup
Pressing F2 within a second registers but the screen then remains frozen. No live images boot.

Any advice?

I̶t̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶c̶c̶u̶r̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶m̶o̶s̶,̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶u̶l̶t̶s. Edit: didn't work.

Additional information:
  • Computer: LG R470-G.AFA4BZ laptop, i3, 4 GB (upgraded from 2), 320 GB
  • The HDD is MBR-partitioned -- I don't think UEFI is supported (the laptop is ~4.5 years old).
 
Even before UEFI, some computers required specific disk partitioning or layout. Some expect to find certain reserved partitions for the BIOS. I can't give specifics for that model, and in fact did not realize LG sold computers.
 
The problem seems to be the hard drive. I tried a different one and things were fine. Could I have wrecked it trying to load FreeBSD?

Also, does anyone have any clues how to re-image the old hard drive?
 
Installing FreeBSD did not damage the hard drive, although it might have pushed an already-failing drive over the edge.

When you say the drive is MBR, do you mean you selected that when installing FreeBSD? GPT drives appear to be MBR when examined by old utilities. That would also explain why a different drive works -- the different drive is really MBR, and does not have GPT tables that confuse the BIOS.
 
Before starting I wiped the whole drive and created an MBR partition table with GParted Live. I had previously tried to go all GPT but Windows wouldn't install and I realized that I needed UEFI firmware, which isn't available on my computer. I then installed Windows (because it usually needs to be first) before creating unused space and then in the FreeBSD installer, a new partition (presumably MBR). But while using the GUID Partition Table it was still booting fine.

So do you think I might have written over the MBR section whilst installing?

Thanks for helping by the way, I'm sure you can tell I'm a bit of a noob. But these struggles only make me want to get FreeBSD working all the more
 
So it's not just a simple FreeBSD install, but a multi-boot setup with Windows. What version of Windows?

Please boot the FreeBSD install CD or memstick and choose Shell. Run gpart show and show the output.
 
Haha yes, was I being too ambitious? Even worse: it was Windows 10.

I would boot from the FreeBSD memory card but unfortunately it doesn't even get that far -- the main reason for this thread :) Nothing boots at all. I guess I could show you the other hard drive's information but that's not really pertinent.
 
Hi,

I had the same problem, although not on a laptop. I tried to install FreeBSD 10.1 and Windows 7 on a few motherboards and different disks (MBR and GPT) and it's always the same, BIOS hanged after reboot. Now the solution that always works for me. First disconnect your disk, so that you can get inside the BIOS setup. Set the IDE channel of this disk to none / not installed / disabled (or similar, depending on your BIOS, if your BIOS is too simple and you can't do this, try to do everything on some other computer that has more advanced BIOS). Power off, connect the disk, and then set everything in its IDE channel manually. Don't leave anything at the Auto setting, it's not enough to just set the access mode properly. I hope this helps, cheers.
 
Chris Buchanzn said:
Haha yes, was I being too ambitious? Even worse: it was Windows 10.

I would boot from the FreeBSD memory card but unfortunately it doesn't even get that far -- the main reason for this thread :) Nothing boots at all. I guess I could show you the other hard drive's information but that's not really pertinent.
Click to expand...

What I was trying to see was whether the system is UEFI or not. If you can get into the BIOS/UEFI, set it to legacy booting.
 
OK, my solution works only for PATA disk, SATA doesn't have this manual setting. But I've found another one :) This hanging is caused by a one byte written during initial disk setup
Code: 
gpart create -s gpt ada0
At byte 01C3 from the beginning of the disk there's a value FF, while it should be FE. After changing this everything works as expected also on auto settings. I'm not sure if this is a bug in gpart or FF value is needed for some other systems. At least I would add -legacy option to gpart create to handle this more gracefully, but I'm new and I'm not quite sure how it should be done. Does anyone has any clues? Thanks in advance :)
 
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