I was fighting this weekend with my old computers. New ISO installation media burned on CD dont want to start
FreeBSD 12.1
FreeBSD 12.0
FreeBSD 11.3
dont work.
"LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: no such file or directory."
FreeBSD 11.2 is OK starting and installing.
What did you do ?
Anticipating the questions, I burned discs on the same computer, on discs of the same manufacturer and tested on two different, old computers.
Solution doesn't work for me
forums.freebsd.org
It's a bug ?
DesktopBSD 20.2 starting OK (FreeBSD 12.1)
FreeBSD 12.1
FreeBSD 12.0
FreeBSD 11.3
dont work.
"LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: no such file or directory."
FreeBSD 11.2 is OK starting and installing.
What did you do ?
Anticipating the questions, I burned discs on the same computer, on discs of the same manufacturer and tested on two different, old computers.
Solution doesn't work for me

Solved - LOADER.LUA file not found
I have burned at least 6 DVDs of the ISO FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso, using every iteration of method I can find, and attempting to boot from any of them BEGINS the boot process, but terminates with "?" and "...BOOT\LUA\LOADER.LUA not found", yet examining the distro finds that file and...
It's a bug ?
DesktopBSD 20.2 starting OK (FreeBSD 12.1)