Installer (and then install) freezes on ThinkCentre M73

[John0x0]

Greetings,

I have a Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 (SFF).

I've previously installed Slackware on it and also OpenBSD without any issues.

I use a ventoy-ed USB thumb drive that never gave me any problems (so far). I've also tried using the .iso and the .img raw on another thumb drive, the result is always the same: as soon as the installer shows the image with the boot options and 10s countdown it freezes. I have to hard-reset the PC.


After a brief stint learning about PXE, TFTP, DHCP, NFS i got the PXE version to boot but got the same result: the installer freezes.


This is the thumb drive before dd'ing the FreeBSD iso:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdh
Disk /dev/sdh: 1.89 GiB, 2034237440 bytes, 3973120 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 2.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B67560FA-CC19-11F0-17A5-D14FFF7C5968

And this is after:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdh
GPT PMBR size mismatch (2656055 != 3973119) will be corrected by write.
The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will be used.
The backup GPT table is not on the end of the device.
Disk /dev/sdh: 1.89 GiB, 2034237440 bytes, 3973120 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 2.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B67560FA-CC19-11F0-17A5-D14FFF7C5968

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdh1 34 58 25 12.5K FreeBSD boot
/dev/sdh2 80 4175 4096 2M EFI System

Those warnings seem weird, i ran dd if=/path/to/FreeBSD-15.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso of=/dev/sdh
Eventually i screwed around with BIOS settings some more and got the installer to boot. Yay! Did a mostly next-next-next install and rebooted.
(There was something like "gpt + lenovo fix" in the installer, that was one of the latest changes i tried, it's now been 4-5x i've reinstalled.)

If i boot in UEFI, i get:
Error 1962: No operating system found. Boot sequence will automatically repeat.

If i boot in BIOS, the installer freezes.

Secure Boot is disabled in the BIOS and it boots in "auto" (meaning it supports both UEFI and BIOS).

For reference the board model is 10B4S2DT00. It has a Core i3-4160 CPU, 16 GiB or RAM and a Kingston SV300S37A120G 2.5" 120GB SATA3 SSD.

As for the BIOS, OpenBSD once stated:
bios0 at mainbus0: SMBIOS rev. 2.8 @ 0xebe90 (37 entries)
bios0: vendor LENOVO version "FCKT72AUS" date 08/04/2015
bios0: LENOVO 10B4S2DT00
acpi0 at bios0: ACPI 5.0

Since the installer did boot, i'm assuming something in my BIOS isn't set right, but other than Secure Boot and BIOS/UEFI i can't really think of what.

Any tips in the right direction are highly appreciated!

PS: first post (yes i've read the pinned topics), first try at this OS

 

[SirDice]

Those warnings seem weird

No, they're not weird. The image is smaller than the medium you put it on. So the backup GPT table isn't at the end of the medium where it's expected to be, it's at the end of the image.

 

[sko]

And that's why you always fetch installer files manually from official sources and dd them to disk yourself - not via some pointy-klicky-toy that screws up and doesn't tell you.

Also: those dell mini-PCs are all *very* sensitive to power supply issues and will act up e.g. if voltages drop under load. verify you are using a sufficient and healthy power supply.

 

[MrBSD]

I use a ventoy-ed USB thumb drive that never gave me any problems (so far).

Ventoy is known for causing problems even if everything looks fine at first glace. I used it for a long time, i continuously keep updating it, but the more i use it, the more i see it as a culprit for some of the issues. It works fine with majority of linux distros and microslop garbage. Everything else, just avoid it. Flash your thumb drives with dd or whatever tool you are using.

 

[balanga]

Greetings,

I have a Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 (SFF).

I have been using one of these (although not sure if it is SFF) as a headless file server/ network gateway for several years and am very pleased with it.

It's currently running FreeBSD 15.0 but I've upgraded several times.

Any tips in the right direction are highly appreciated!

PS: first post (yes i've read the pinned topics), first try at this OS

It's a few years since I installed FreeBSD on this system but I regularly install it on various other systems normally using Ventoy which provides me with the simplest way to install it.