BSD's do not load

[Lengsel]

Every BSD I've tried does not load, does not boot off CD.

For PC-BSD 0.8.1, I get the flower screen saying loading system and then craps out

Mounting root from ufs:/dev/md0

Root mount failed:5

Manual root filesystem specification:
<fstype>:<device> Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype>
eg. ufs: da0s1a

? List valid disk moot devices

<empty line> Abort manual input

<mountroot>

Using ASUS A7N266-VM, AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Kingston 2 x PC2100 512MB, nVidia GeForce4 420 MX, Audigy OEM, Sony DVD-RW DRU-800A, Lite-On LTR 52327S

I've had this every single time from the 1st PC-BSD to 0.8.1 the exact same error text that has come up. So I am wondering, since there seems to be a large number of people having just bery basic booting problems off the CD, would it not be better to wait for FreeBSD 6.0 and try to build on that, see if it's more functional, or just scrap PC-BSD and forget the whole thing. Every single Linux distribution boots and loads with no problem, absolutely none of BSD's can load or install

[Solarin]

If every single BSD distro you've tried has failed to install, or even boot... don't you think you might be doing something incorrectly your end?

Scrapping a project because a few people are having installation issues with some BETA software probably doesn't make much sense either.

[jamiefoxer]

just as a temporary workaround, try this. It might work.

On my desktop, I played around with how the harddrive is accessed. I had it on RAID / ACHI, but that din't work. Try different modes. IDE, ATA, SATA/PATA, etc.

Maybe one of the harddrive schemes works for you. For me, SATA/PATA mode worked.

[Lengsel]

How can I be doing anything wrong, the computer reads the CD, starts loading and then craps out, I don't get menus, options, nothing, it just loads and then errors out. so how is it any Linux installs, but all the BSD's give errors just seconds after it starts loading off the CD?

[koozdra]

Are you saying this happens before anything is copied to you harddrive?

[Lengsel]

Yes I am, that's exactly what I'm saying. Nothing installs, nothing is copied. Just tried loading the CD then get boot failures, errors, all that, so I have never ever once ever seen the PC-BSD load or install menu, don't know what it looks like.

[flavius]

It happen to me the same. And it's not working neither with:
mountroot>cd9660:acd0, or else.

[Poiema]

Athlon XP seems to be the problem. Take a look at the forums on Desktop BSD and there are many post with the same issue. It appears that their current release at Dbsd might have solved this problem. I haven't tried for myself though. My guess is that FreeBSD might not have the same issue because they have support and testing capabilities that these newer and still smaller distros don't currently have. Kris and Peter can use testers and programers on other standard platforms to help work out these bugs in their distros.

[Solarin]

Athlon XP seems to be the problem. Take a look at the forums on Desktop BSD and there are many post with the same issue. It appears that their current release at Dbsd might have solved this problem. I haven't tried for myself though. My guess is that FreeBSD might not have the same issue because they have support and testing capabilities that these newer and still smaller distros don't currently have. Kris and Peter can use testers and programers on other standard platforms to help work out these bugs in their distros.

Negative, Athlon XP is not an issue.

I've run every version of PC-BSD since 0.8 on an Athlon XP 2000+ box without issue.

[handy]

I have am posting elsewhere on this same problem:

http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?p=46251#46251

The only reason that I'm posting here, is that 3 machines (so far from a short time searching these forums) including mine have the same problem & we are all using the same Asus A7N266-VM m/board!

I don't think this is a coincidence, It must be a problem with the board/BIOS.

Edit: 4 machines, I found another one to try with the same A7N266-VM board!