Successful Install Will Not Boot - PC-BSD Forums

mit-physicist · #1 01-11-2012, 01:41 AM

I am attempting to install PC-BSD 8.2 from DVD onto a machine with an AMD Athalon dual-core with 4G of RAM, an old (but still working) AH2940UW SCSI controller, a Quantum Atlas III 35GB drive and an older Quantum Fireball 1.2 GB drive. Both drives format successfully. The install appears to go just fine. However, when I click "Finish" and the system reboots, the BTX loader comes up and then freezes. Nothing short of a reboot will do anything. Also, rebooting to the Install DVD freezes. I had 8GB in the machine, and thought it might have a problem with that, so I removed half of it, but the result is the same.

Has anyone seen this kind of problem before? Any wisdom to share, please?

mit-physicist · #2 01-11-2012, 02:04 AM

OK, so I read the guide and understand that I am failing almost certainly due to trying to create the primary partition (using the whole disk) with the PCBSD Installer. My bad. Now, the question is: How to create that partition without using that system. Could I, for example, use the 8.2 FreeBSD install disk in live mode and create the partition with that, perhaps using gpart(8)? If so, what would be the correct arguments to make a single UFS partition using the whole disk? Seems that if that works, I should be on my way.

mit-physicist · #3 01-11-2012, 04:15 PM

So, I followed Skull Fire's instructions very carefully. Made a live image of aptosid ponos and used it to create the single partition. Made slices per his instructions, too. No joy. Install goes fine, but the BTX loader stops just after it says

Code:

BTX loader 1.00  BTX version is 1.02
Consoles: internal video/keyboard

(1) The system video and keyboard (not the mouse) is on a KVM switch. Do you think that would make any difference?

(2) There is a second, small (and old) 1.22GB Quantum Fireball on SCSI ID=1 in addition to the (brand new, just out of the box) 33.9GB Quantum Atlas III on SCSI ID=0 on the bus. The smaller drive also has a single BSD partition, and my plan was to use it as SWAP. Do you think this second drive on the SCSI bus could make a difference? I could, of course, just disconnect it.

The strangest thing about this is that, once the install completes, not only will the system fail to boot to the HD, it won't boot to the install DVD anymore, either. It will, however, boot to the live aptosid CD that I created last night.

I'm completely stumped. Help?

-Lyman

mit-physicist · #4 01-11-2012, 08:06 PM

Ah, User Error! Found that you have to be very specific in the install to choose the partition and not the disk (which is what it defaults to).

Thanks to all of you who read this, even if I didn't get any suggestions and worked it out for myself. Quite the learning experience. And thanks again to Skull Fire for his excellent "Howto" on making the necessary partition externally.

-Lyman