Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:08:17 +1100 From: Tony Frank <tfrank@optushome.com.au> To: Mike Newell <mnewell@spottydogs.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Boot loop in FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE after install Message-ID: <20040220030817.GA25852@marvin.home.local> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.58.0402192141470.96673@Rikers.SpottyDogs.Org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.58.0402121114540.4151@Rikers.SpottyDogs.Org> <20040218121144.GF289@marvin.home.local> <Pine.BSF.4.58.0402192141470.96673@Rikers.SpottyDogs.Org>
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Hi, On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:48:04PM -0500, Mike Newell wrote: > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Tony Frank wrote: > tfrank> While I cannot perhaps comment on your problem, you can try either pressing > tfrank> 'pause' key or 'scrolllock' which might help depending on where the problems > tfrank> are occuring. > They don't work. Fortunately I was able to: > > 1. Hook a null modem to the serial port and my laptop. > 2. Run hyperterm on my laptop to view serial port data. > 3. During the initial boot load hit ESC to get the "Boot:" promt, > then do "-h" to switch to serial console. > 4. Capture the stuff on the serial console. > > What it does is repeatedly go through the BTX boot loader, saying > something like (this is from memory): > > BTX loader... > BIOS Drive A is disk 0 > BIOS Drive C is disk 1 > BIOS Drive D is disk 2 > > BTX loader... > BIOS Drive A is disk 3 > BIOS Drive C is disk 4 > BIOS Drive D is disk 5 > > BTX loader... > > and so on. Eventually it runs out of drive numbers and starts saying > "Can't figure out our boot device" a few times, then crashes with an > assert error. Looks like the loader is just looping until it runs out of > heap. That suggests that it may be confused somehow. I saw the crash/assert type scenario if the boot blocks are not installed properly. Ie the MBR is updated with the bootmgr (F1 .. bit) but the 2nd/3rd stages were corrupted somehow. (In my case I accidentally overwrote the blocks with some experiementation) You can reinstall boot blocks using bsdlabel (or disklabel on 4.9) If you can boot from floppy/CD, get into fixit mode. Then run: bsdlabel -B da0s1 (assuming da0 is the disk you are trying to boot from) > If I try to boot directly into the kernel the cursor changes from a > blinking underscore to a solid block and the system just locks up. > > In no case is there an error message or any other indication that > something is weird. Have you tried 4.9-RELEASE on this system? I understand that 5.2.1-RC2 ISO is also available which might be another option. Regards, Tony
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