Yeah that page is WRAP-specific, not applicable to the ALIX at all. If you're seeing that, you have an outdated BIOS on the ALIX that has a bug that prevents it from functioning. Upgrade the BIOS and you'll be set.

However, you can do a full install onto CF, which is what the OP asked about.  There are just things to be aware of, all of which can be easily found by searching the forum.

You are both right, it seems that some one pulled the plug on the pfSense box without telling me. I am glad its not a hardware failure. Verified by pulling the plug on the system, all RRD info was erased. Thank you!.

I put some stuff at the bottom of the rc file and it is all working now.

On the console, you get a menu. It's one of the menu options. Just look at the list, press the number, and follow the prompts. No commands to type. :)

I presume you have the problem described in http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,25444.0.html  If so, follow those instructions. When you installed on USB the drive would have been called something like da0 but now that its connected to a SATA controller its called ad6. The startup just needs to be tweaked to look for the root filesystem in the correct place.

There isn't really an easy way to move the configuration from opt1 to WAN if you want to keep the OPT1 rules and make them the new WAN rules (discarding the current WAN rules). You might have to hand-edit a config backup and replace opt1 with wan in the rule interfaces, but it would be easy to mess something up so be very careful (and keep some clean, unedited backup copies).

It works! Many thanks, you saved me a lot of time and trouble. :)

@jimp: Try the fdisk/bsdlabel suggestion here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting Should also work when booted from a 1.2.2 CD. If you can wipe/reformat, you might also want to make a small / partition (less than 4GB) and make the rest /usr - obviously that requires a custom install and not a quick/easy install Jimp, I also tried booting from a 1.2.3 livecd and even the livecd doesn't load with the same error message.  From http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2009-December/thread.html#53132 , they seem to be saying its a memory issue with the loader and a possible solution is offered.

Thanks GF ….I seem now to be at the point where Buying the book can only be a good thing.... I have so much to learn and only an old head to do it with  :'( Managed to get opt's on the lan...next is getting the firewall to allow them.... at times like this I wonder....why do I say computing and stuff is fun???

Soekris Engineering net4801 This compact, low-power, low-cost, advanced communication computer is based on an up to 266 Mhz 586 class processor. It has three 10/100 Mbit ethernet ports, up to 256 Mbyte SDRAM main memory and uses a CompactFlash module for program and data storage. It can be expanded using a MiniPCI type III board and a low-power standard PCI board. Given those specs, you might be lucky to see in the 20's or so. Less if you are using any kind of VPN, traffic shaping, or other CPU-bound features. That's a pretty underpowered device. You'd get the full speed of that line on something faster like an ALIX 2D3 or a newer Soekris board like a 5501.

@tommyboy180: If the drives are SATA put the controller into legacy mode. Depending on the BIOS and controller this is sometimes called IDE mode (or the other mode avaliable that is not AHCI).

There is probably no way to make that card work on pfSense 1.2.3. pfSense 2.0 is at BETA3 now, it is no longer Alpha, and it's actually fairly stable in many regards (but still needs work in others). Make sure you are using a current snapshot from the last couple days and it should be OK for many things.

There's also nothing stopping you from writing a NanoBSD image to a regular disk of course. So it is still an option, but you won't be able to partition the system to use the whole disk (there's no need to either).

This has turned out to be a problem of BIOS settings. The LBA option had to be activated in the BIOS options.

Yes this is possible. Create an allow rule with as source the OPT subnet and as destination the printer IP.