From owner-freebsd-firewire@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 20 05:11:57 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-firewire@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 03E55106566C for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:11:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com) Received: from sopwith.solgatos.com (pool-98-108-131-15.ptldor.fios.verizon.net [98.108.131.15]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D74158FC0C for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:11:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: by sopwith.solgatos.com (Postfix, from userid 66) id 51E48B650; Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:27:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost by sopwith.solgatos.com (8.8.8/6.24) id FAA18830; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:04:53 GMT Message-Id: <201001200504.FAA18830@sopwith.solgatos.com> To: Kevin Roettger In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:42:54 +0100." <122773021388063697565656768835963591048-Webmail@me.com> Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:04:53 PST From: Dieter Cc: freebsd-firewire@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Boot from Firewire (VIA Fire II) X-BeenThere: freebsd-firewire@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Firewire support in FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:11:57 -0000 > I am trying to boot from a Firewire drive using FreeBSD 8.0 on a i386 > system. My motherboard is an Asus A7V8X-X and Firewire ports are > provided using a VIA Fire II (VT6306) PCI card. > > The card works once FreeBSD is booted from internal IDE drive for example > (seen as fwohci0) but I cannot boot from it. I've tried pretty much all boot > possibilities in the BIOS and no luck (it doesn't even find the drive). I think your VIA card needs to have a "BIOS boot ROM" in order to boot from it. Alternately, if one of the FLOSS BIOSs supports your mainboard, it might be possible to add support there. I have a mainboard with the VT6307 onboard, but I don't recall seeing any mention of it (or Firewire) in the BIOS. On an unrelated note, are you able to get your VT6306 into "non-CYCLEMASTER mode"? > My question is: is it possible to "bootstrap" from another source (USB stick, > floppy...), load a small kernel with Firewire support to see the drive and then > switch kernels to "boot again" from that FW drive? Of course It would be nice > to not need the USB stick for anything once switched to the FW drive (but not > mandatory). You might be able to boot the FreeBSD boot loader from some bootable device, and have the boot loader load the kernel from a Firewire drive. See loader(8). Environment variables that look potentially useful: rootdev, bootfile, currdev. I don't know if the boot loader knows how to talk to the VIA card and load from a Firewire drive. If this doesn't work, I think you'd need most or all of /boot on the bootable device. > Actually, FreeBSD is already installed on this machine but using internal IDE, > I'd like to remove all drives from inside the computer case and use only an > external drive enclosure. Ideally I would like to keep the same drive and not > reinstall (of course I assume fstab changes are needed). If your main goal is to get the disks outside the case, you might consider eSATA. If your mainboard doesn't have SATA, you can add a SATA controller card, or use a PATA-to-SATA bridge. eSATA is a lot faster then Firewire or USB. Downside is that the cables can't be as long.