Update from 8.2 to 9.0

[makdaddy8888]

Failed miserably, spent over 40 hours and yes, I have read as much as I can ingest on the manual.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=ecf9aa6dac176572&resid=ECF9AA6DAC176572!342&parid=root

This is the current issue. I have an old AMD 3200 and am using Release 9.0 disk 1 i386. I also downloaded the amd64 thinking that because I have an amd chip this might be my issue. But that's no good either.

I have used Hiren's Boot CD to wipe the hard drive so that there is no partition and was going to use the installer to do an auto configure of the hard drive. It is a 500GB Hitachi EIDE not SATA on Master.

I was using 8.2 but after the built-in function to update to 9.0 the infamous mountroot> appeared and nothing would get this thing booted.

I escape to the Boot Loader and did an LSDEV and could see /mnt/ad0s1a (tried to mount ufs:/mnt/ad0s1a and ufs:/mnt/ada0s1) and was seeing lots of Error 5 when trying to mount as well as error 18. I think it was an issue with the way I previously partitioned the drive.

Also can anyone suggest a better place to dump images or another way to show you the output of the terminal?

 

[Terri_Kennedy]

Failed miserably

spent over 40 hours and yes I have read as much as I can ingest on the manual.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=ecf9aa6dac176572&resid=ECF9AA6DAC176572!342&parid=root

From your screenshot, it looks like it is panicing in the installer. The screenshot indicates an unrecoverable read error (5, EIO) on your ada0 disk. That's presumably the disk you're trying to install on.

As a first step, let's rule out a problem with the disk drive. You can download the official Hitachi Drive Fitness Test here as a floppy or CD image. The "Advanced Test" option should read the entire disk, and any errors should be reported. It also has a SMART utility, though it may be out-of-date. Here you can find a list of bootable CD images which include the sysutils/smartmontools package. mfsBSD (incorrectly labeled mftBSD in that list) is based on FreeBSD, so that's probably your best bet.

Another possibility is that your disk controller is an older version with quirks that the FreeBSD driver may not handle. When you were running FreeBSD 8.2, do you remember if your disk was ad0 and not ada0? If so, FreeBSD 9.0 is using a different driver to talk to it. I'm not sure offhand how to have the 9.0 install CD fall back to using the older driver - perhaps someone else here can help.

 

[Terri_Kennedy]

I esc to Boot Loader and did as LSDEV and could see /mnt/ad0s1a (tryed to mount ufs:/mnt/ad0s1a and ufs:/mnt/ada0s1)and was seeing lots of Error 5 when trying to mount as well as error 18. I think it was an issue with the way I previously partitioned the drive.

I wouldn't expect to see "mnt" in there. Did you mean "dev"?

Also can anyone suggest a better place to dump images or another way to show you the output of the terminal?

Unfortunately your options are rather limited unless you're running on server-class hardware. Servers often have either a virtual console (KVM) or a serial console redirection option. It is possible to install FreeBSD with boot blocks which support a serial console, but that's not going to help you now if you can't get the installer to work in the first place.

 

[makdaddy8888]

Thanks Terry,

I did use the Hitachi/IBM Utility on the Hiren's Boot CD only did a quick scan and not an issue so it seems. I will do the full test but I leaning to my limited knowledge of slicing and ada0 v ad0 and that seems to ring some bells. I recall reading something about 9 using a different driver but also surprised that the installer does not do some checks before proceeding.

I presume the sysutils/smartmontools only works once you get a working OS running and this option cannot be added before. I also don't rely much on SMART and rather rely on GRC spinrite which has never let me down (no I don't work for them.

I'm still new with FreeBSD and never sure if I load from dev or mount to mnt (vice-versa) but yet I meant dev.

Thanks for your assistance and hope to be up and running soon.
Ben

 

[Terri_Kennedy]

I recall reading something about 9 using a different driver but also surprised that the installer does not do some checks before proceeding.

The drivers each have a list of devices they support (generally by comparing PCI IDs). However, each manufacturer can have new and creative ways of not setting things up properly. When something like that gets discovered, it is often added to a list of "quirks" that the driver uses to work around problems. Sometimes that isn't possible - for example, there's a known conflict between hptrr(4) and ata(4) since some hardware doesn't identify itself correctly.

I presume the sysutils/smartmontools only works once you get a working OS running and this option cannot be added before.

That's true for the port. However, the link I gave you was for a bunch of different "Live CD" images which are bootable and have smartmontools already installed.

I also dont rely much on SMART and rather rely on GRC spinrite which has never let me down (no i don't work for them)

Don't get me started on that...