No OS Found on Reboot Once Only

B

boomer3200

Hello,

I am happily running FreeBSD 8.2 as a desktop on an IBM ThinkCentre M50 8187-5AU.

Well I had a need to reboot quickly after an uptime of about a minute the other night and issued the $ shutdown -r now command after becoming a super user. On this particular occasion the reboot seemed to take a little longer than usual and when the computer powered up the usual bios detection screen reported a configuration change when self-testing the memory, harddrive, etc. Then the machine cycled 2 or 3 times on an error message of "no operating system found" instead of displaying the usual FreeBSD text boot menu; I performed a hard shutdown (hit power button to force a power off) to avoid any damage if possible.

The machine subsequently booted normally and I have had no other troubles before or since. Could anyone advise if this problem sometimes occurs with hardware on a reboot, or if I should consider a re-install for some reason?

My bios settings have been retained in other instances, so I think the cmos battery is ok. Please let me know if any other information would be helpful and thanks for your assistance.
 
As far as I know, CMOS detects changes when the hardware it detects isn't the same as that which was saved on the last boot. This means that on your reboot, your hard drive failed to be detected. It could mean that your hard drive is giving you hints of failing, or simply isn't connected properly.

Of course it could be horrible things like your mother board failing, or you have bad electricity coming into your computer, but before those things get assumed, try for the simpler ones: check your cables.
 
Thanks for the quick reply Garrosh. I powered-down to confirm that the power and the SATA cables were properly connected to the drive.

The harddrive is new, but admittedly that's no guarantee, so I can only hope it is not failing. I will try to figure out a good way to test the drive if possible. I am still able to boot without further problems since that one issue and writing you from the FreeBSD box. Hopefully no data is corrupted on the drive.

I had a thought that maybe the drive did not spin down properly due to the short uptime, which led to a problem on the detection at startup, but that's a wild guess to be honest.
 
Thanks for the suggestion SirDice. I ran smartctl with no errors found in either the long or the short tests (copy of the results is provided with the serial number removed below). I also tested the drive using the manufacturer's program on a DOS boot disk to be safe and again found no errors.

Here is the log:

Code: 
smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE i386] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0
Serial Number:    XX-XXXXXXXXXXXX [omitted for posting online]
Firmware Version: 15.01H15
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Thu May 12 22:28:31 2011 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                                        was completed without error.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever 
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:                 (8400) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  85) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   141   141   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       3908
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       37
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       98
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       33
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       3
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   104   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       39
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%        97         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        96         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

I think the issue is probably not related to a harddrive error.
 
Resolved

Found the issue. My monitor went into powersave mode and I hit the spacebar during the restart that I mentioned above. Only F1 to enter the bios set-up and enter to choose boot devices are supposed to matter when the system bios loads. However, I found that the IBM bios self-tests halt at the point you press a key like the spacebar (this is undocumented AFAIK). Halt is maybe a bit kind, because the system freezes permanently if you press a button very early or fails to find a boot device later. Most likely the harddrive was being detected when I hit the spacebar that led to the "no os found" error.

So thank you to everyone who helped and I have to say that the problem was not at all due to FreeBSD.
 
Good point about Shift Lock. I always used Scroll Lock if I was compiling from ports and the monitor went into power save. Got careless on that reboot and it came to haunt me.
 
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