MISSING HDD WHEN 99 IS EXECUTED
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when i rebooted it, it says boot error.
Can you provide any more information (for example, the 6 or so lines BEFORE boot error or a screenshot)?
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In addition to jimp's suggestion:
3. In the BIOS set the disk controller mode to IDE or Legacy or "Dumb" or … instead of SATA or RAID or Advanced or .... The "older" modes sometimes work better with "older" software.
I'd bet on this one. I had to use legacy mode (set, as mentioned, in the BIOS setup) to have a SATA disk recognized for install.
(with legacy mode, 2.0.3 is perfectly happy with a sata disk connected to an internal motherboard sata port) The part about seeing the disk at first and not seeing it later when you would actually install also sounds very familiar. Get into the BIOS and check.
Here's my post bout it (mode was actually "IDE" rather than AHCI on my BIOS.) http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,58791.msg315871.html#msg315871
As for formatting, always format it, IMHO. When I was trying various versions and settings out, I reformatted every time I swapped things around.
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In addition to jimp's suggestion: @jimp:
Try a 2.1 snapshot. It would have more up-to-date drivers.
some things you could try:
1. Put your hard drive in an external USB enclosure; you should then be able to access it as a da device.
2. Put the hard drive on the motherboard system chipset disk controller (some motherboards have additional disk controller chips to support RAID or just provide additional disk ports. The documentation often provides identification of which ports go with which chip, sometimes the ports are even colour coded.)
3. In the BIOS set the disk controller mode to IDE or Legacy or "Dumb" or … instead of SATA or RAID or Advanced or .... The "older" modes sometimes work better with "older" software.If you can easily capture and post the output of the pfSense shell commands```
dmesg
pciconf -l -vI did try your recommendation and it doesn't work. So what I did, I installed Window 7, run a VM ware and installed pfsense there and It has succesfuly installed. But still I'll get back with that error as to how to fix it. Now, I have to be ready as to how to fix incoming trouble brought about by the pfsense running on vmware.
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when i rebooted it, it says boot error.
Can you provide any more information (for example, the 6 or so lines BEFORE boot error or a screenshot)?
The first and only line is BOOT ERROR
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when i rebooted it, it says boot error.
Can you provide any more information (for example, the 6 or so lines BEFORE boot error or a screenshot)?
The first and only line is BOOT ERROR
Anyway, I would rather be thankful if you could suggest the best motherboard and processor compatible for pfsense. At the moment I'm using quad core and gigabyte double bios. But it seems this mobo is not that compatible with 2.0.3.
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I did try your recommendation and it doesn't work.
I noticed you tried suggestion 1 and reported it didn't work. Did you also try suggestions 2 and 3?
What is the brand and model of your computer (or motherboard)?
I installed Window 7, run a VM ware and installed pfsense there and It has succesfuly installed.
What hard drive size did you give the pfSense VM? What was the size of the hard drive when you tried to install pfSense on the "bare metal" computer (without VMWARE)?
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Running pfsense on hardware is a much better solution than in VM.
Also, I'm wondering, although I know your answer will be:
"But I already have interfaces", is there anyone who can let you borrow a sata interface for a try, because a new sata interface will use different drivers, chips etc and most likely have very different results than you are getting now. Or return the board and get a trustier, rustier more vetted on pfsense board? -
Anyway, I would rather be thankful if you could suggest the best motherboard and processor compatible for pfsense. At the moment I'm using quad core and gigabyte double bios. But it seems this mobo is not that compatible with 2.0.3.
Have you, in fact, actually tried setting your BIOS disk controller mode to IDE? Sounds like you tried the "usb case" option and then bailed on it - or at least reported back very vaguely. You may not be familiar with BIOS settings (?), they are not so difficult if you simply slow down and read carefully. Usually F1 or F2 on startup to get into them.
Your hardware "spec" is RATHER vague - "gigabyte dual bios" covers about 40 boards, some intel, some amd, and "quad core" narrows your processor choice down to a mere several hundred options. Dual bios sounds like a solution in search of a problem, frankly, but if it makes you happy….
The system in my sig works perfectly, twice over, running 2.03, once the bios disk controller setting is changed to IDE. With 500GB disks, not that the size likely matters much... DQ77MK is an intel motherboard model with 2 built-in intel NICS and 4 memory slots. Last time I checked, it was running right around 50 watts while running 3 fans...
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Anyway, I would rather be thankful if you could suggest the best motherboard and processor compatible for pfsense. At the moment I'm using quad core and gigabyte double bios. But it seems this mobo is not that compatible with 2.0.3.
Have you, in fact, actually tried setting your BIOS disk controller mode to IDE? Sounds like you tried the "usb case" option and then bailed on it - or at least reported back very vaguely. You may not be familiar with BIOS settings (?), they are not so difficult if you simply slow down and read carefully. Usually F1 or F2 on startup to get into them.
Your hardware "spec" is RATHER vague - "gigabyte dual bios" covers about 40 boards, some intel, some amd, and "quad core" narrows your processor choice down to a mere several hundred options. Dual bios sounds like a solution in search of a problem, frankly, but if it makes you happy….
The system in my sig works perfectly, twice over, running 2.03, once the bios disk controller setting is changed to IDE. With 500GB disks, not that the size likely matters much... DQ77MK is an intel motherboard model with 2 built-in intel NICS and 4 memory slots. Last time I checked, it was running right around 50 watts while running 3 fans...
Processor: AMD FX 4100 (Black Edition) 3.6-3.8 gz, 12mb, 4-core Processor
MoBo: Gigabyte 970A DS3 - 4 slots for DDR3 RAM
NIC: DLINK DGE 528T/530T, Gigabit
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Black Edition SATAI did tuned the BIOS into legacy and IDE Native, turned off Audio.
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In your bios, can you set:
EFI CD/DVD Boot Option - off
OnChip SATA Controller - on
OnChip SATA Type - Native IDE (might also want to try AHCI if that doesn't work)
OnChip SATA RAID5 Support - disable (if you even see it. You shouldn't)OnChip SATA3.0 Support - Try it on. Then try it off. (its relevant to sata spec of drive interface)
If still no luck, I'd swap it already.
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OK - I gave a whole list of settings that I think should be set to make it as fail safe compatible as is possible. Not just a single setting. Good luck Hope it fires up.
BIOS often comes with odd settings, like NICs off, SATA off, video to PCI and VGA off. Lots of weird default settings I've seen be a nuisance over the years.
I downloaded your manual and read through it. Also looked for references to Freebsd lack of support to the chipset without finding anything.
So, I'm thinking if the BIOS settings make no difference, get yourself a good spec dual (or more) nic board that is from 2011 or so and has TONs of sucessful pfsense installs behind it. (Still bet it would fire right up on a add on SATA card though) -
In addition to the suggestions from kejianshi I would also disable the USB3.0 Controller (Etron EJ168 USB Controller, USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel).
Other people have reported disabling USB 3 controllers has helped with boot and install problems.
The post at http://www.newswebreader.com/muc.lists.freebsd.hardware/freebsd-9-0-amd64-memstick-installation-does-not-detect-SATA-3-0/54 reports problems in FreeBSD 9.0 detecting SATA 3 drives connected to the SB950 chip. I suspect that it is unlikely that FreeBSD 8.3 (used in pfSense 2.1) would be better at detecting SATA3 drives on the SB950 than FreeBSD 9.0.
SB950 is the "south bridge" on your motherboard.
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Good idea wallabybob. I didn't consider that.
BSD 8.4 - 2.2
The xhci(4) USB driver now supports Etron EJ168 USB 3.0 Host Controllers.[r245736]
Are we even on 8.4 - 2.2 yet in pfsense?
I love me some new hardware. Blazing fast (specs) anyway. Life on the jagged edge of drivers.
So off with the SATA3 mode and off with the USB3. I'm dying to see how this ends.
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Are we even on 8.4 - 2.2 yet in pfsense?
No. pfSense 2.0.x uses FreeBSD 8.1 and pfSense 2.1 uses FreeBSD 8.3.
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pfSense 2.2 will be based on FreeBSD 10.x, so there will be a large leap in driver support there. Once we ship out 2.1 (hopefully soon) we'll start working more on that.
