HELP!!! Can't install pfSense
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Does it actually not list re0 or re1?
You could try entering that anyway.Yes your WAN interface would normally connect to your modem. If your modem/router has a built in switch then it would be correct to connect to one of the lan ports.
Optimally you should set your modem to bridge mode so that your public IP gets passed to pfSense but we can work on that later! ;)Steve
Edit: You should probably try booting your board from a live linux cd to ensure that your cards work with your motherboard and there isn't some hardware mismatch that's throwing us off.
Hey Steve, thanks for all the help.It doesnt show up the NICs ata ll, just the 1 onboard vr0
I just managed to get through by creating 2 VLAN's so i can try and attempt to install drivers for the NICs.. i have an issue, once the install went through i selete option 99 to install to hard drive (80GB SATA) it went through, i chose single processor kernal as i only have a P4, then it said it was about to reboot and to remove cd.. once i do this, it boots to a screen that says:
F1 FreeBSD
Option: F1
When i hit enter, it does nothing.. just stalls.. can i not install to a SATA drive?
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What if you press F1?
If you wait long enough does it eventually give a kernel error?
This is a common problem and it's usually caused by the bios incorrectly reporting the disk geometry to the bootloader. Once FreeBSD has booted it can read the geometry directly so it has no problem.
Make sure your BIOS is up to date, this sort of error is commonly corrected by bios updates.Alternatively, as a work around, setting the disk to LBA mode instead of auto detect ofetn works.
See: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_TroubleshootingPata is less likely to cause you trouble if you have that option.
Steve
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Pressing F1 also does nothing, and it just sits there.. no error messages or anything..
I will try the link you sent in a bit and report back
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Ok, still no good.. my BIOS doesnt give that LBA option, only RAID or IDE, and its set to IDE.
Not sure how to upgrade the BIOS, i dont even know who the manufacturer of the board is, just know the model name.. which a few seem to have the same.
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The bios is displayed ( mostly ) in left bottom when it boots, or in the bios when you enter it.
This code will tell yo who the manufacturer is, if you can't find it, open the box and look on the Motherboard itselfIf I was you I would go into the bios, and look around if you can find to load the defaults (fail safe) for it.
Then untick anything else you don't need like paralel and serial ports, you have only a pata disc so disable the settings for sata or if on automatic if the MB can do both disable sata if you use a pata disk drive.So, then check if pc boots fine, get yourself for example the hiren cd to eventually test the hardware, like MemTest and check the Drive, a zerofill with DBAN is a good thing if this hard disk has been used in the past.
Write the cd/dvd at 1x speed, then install again…
Let me know, the result so we can rule out your other hardware other then the nics.
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Hi Nicklas,
I have loaded fail safe defaults and still no change. My Disk is a SATA 80gb drive.I already zerofilled the drive before i started this project with DBAN. I can't see how to update the BIOS, i cant even easily find the manufactrer of the board to work out how to do this.. its an old box that i got given to me.
I have also reburned the iso at slower speed and still having this issue. Is there something i could have chosen incorrect when i went through the install to Hard drive? no matter what i do i cant e past that boot part with the option: F1 FreeBSD
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Get the Hiren v13.2 cd burn it and start with miniXP, then it will give you a lot of othr tools as well to check the hardware, because hiren has many of these tools on board. When the PC boots it should show you in left bottom corner a string with info, this info is to find out the manufacturere, when you got the box was it in a case for example dell or HP or so? Have you disabled all other hardware in the bios you don't need to free up irqs like the 2 serial ports and printer port, look if the bios give option for pci settings and tell it to let the software find it…that helps sometimes as well. is that extra nic card pci or pci-x ? then careful with that option.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd gives you a overview of the tools to check your hardware, maybe if you boot with the miniXP if might show !!!! in the device manager or even give you some more clues about the hardware you have.
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Is this it?
http://www.phitronics.com.br/p7v80_4.php
I don't speak Portuguese. :P
Steve
Edit: It's almost certainly the same as this PCChips board the P23G.
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Thanks Nicklas, i will check that out.
Steve, i had also just found that and i am pretty sure it is the right board, i am in Brazil and speak Portugues, so i am guessing its the right one.
I dont however have a clue how i am going th flash the bios as i have no floppy…
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Reading through the manual for the pchips board, which is in English ;), I can't see anything in the bios that jumps out at me. You must have the sata set to IDE mode. It should be detected in the first bios screen and there may be a way to set it from auto to manual, the manual doesn't show.
Unfortunately some of these early SATA implementations, 2003, were a bit dodgy.
I recently struggled to get a similar age Asus board to boot Linux from SATA. The bios code at the time just wasn't mature enough.If you have a pata HD use it.
Steve
Edit: Both sites have bioses available from mid 2007. If yours is still a 2003 bios you should update. You can do that from a bootable DOS CD.
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Ill try and work out how to make a bootable DOS CD and see if i can flash the BIOS.. i guess that board wouldn't be able to boot from Thumb drive?
I might try and install linux on this to see if it will work at all with this hard drive..
EDIT: Just managed to install IPCop, and it boots into it after install.. so seems the system hardware can take a linux install. Man, i really want to use pfSense..
Also.. i should add, that i just noticed that when it starts up, the Boot part before going into the BIOS at the top it has the Mainboard model number P7800Pro and next to it is says 06/08/2007.. so i am guessing it already has the latest BIOS??
Man, now i am really stumped..
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Ah well that's good news.
Does it correctly detect the two PCI cards under IPCop?
It probably can boot from USB, it's not that old.So, it won't boot because of some FreeBSD bootloader quirk. Solution: Use a different bootloader.
Grub presumably works if IPCop loads (are they using grub? It's been a long time) so you can use that. Alternatives are suggested in the boot troubleshooting page I linked to.Steve
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Now you've lost me.. not really sure about the bootloader thingy.. is grub what is installed with pfSense?? It is a blank hard drive, so i havent installed anything, or have the know how to install a different bootloader..
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By far the easiest thing you could do is use a PATA drive.
The bootloader is what first runs after the bios. It loads and runs the OS.
FreeBSD is complex and has several stages of loading. The output you are seeing "option F1 Freebsd" is from the first part of the loading sequence. It should automatically load and run the next part but for some reason it's not doing that. Probably because it can't find the code on the sata drive.
By using a different bootloader that knows about SATA you should be able to get pfSense running. It's not easy though! ::)Steve
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I see, not easy and FreeBSD makes it really not easy for me then :)
I just tried doing the install to a 8gb Thumb drive formatted to NTFS.. didn't work either.. But this one didn't even get as far as the reboot.. maybe cant use thumb drives either. I'll have to see if i can get an IDE drive then. Do you know how i might try to load a different bootloader?
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Theoretically it would be something like:
Install pfSense.
Boot from a linux live cd, like Ubuntu.
Install grub.However it's not something I've ever tried myself so I can't offer any advice on the specifics. I've just been Googling the topic and there doesn't seem to be much directly helpful info out there.
Steve
Look at this post about using the GAG loader. Looks pretty straight forward.
Instruction on this blog. Not quite the same problem but hopefully the same solution. -
Sometimes some linux flavours seems to have trouble with apci, maybe you could disable this in your bios and try again, but as said before you must check all settings in your bios, because it can be tricky sometimes. Please check if your bios gives option to set sata/pata to automatic and change it to sata only if you still try this with the original disk.
http://www.techtalkz.com/freebsd/114125-how-disable-acpi-bootup.html
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I'm starting to think there might be something wrong with the hardware here.. I have just installed Ubuntu on it and it still freezes from time to time..
The BIOS doesnt give any SATA/PATA option.. just IDE or RAID.
Going to get someone to check out the hardware for me now.. then i'll come back and let you know how its going. Thanks for all the support!!
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Did you disable the ACPI?
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The first option in the bios should look something like this:
If you have selected the IDE option for SATA does it appear on that screen?
If so you should be able to move the highlighted area down to it and press enter. Then you'll get some options, auto, manual, LBA, CHS, etc.It seems like you are having a very hard time. I hope it doesn't put you off using pfSense.
Steve
